New Internationalist magazineen-auhttps://digital.newint.com.au/
The New Internationalist is an independent monthly not-for-profit magazine that reports on action for global justice. We believe in putting people before profit, in climate justice, tax justice, equality, social responsibility and human rights for all.The dirt on wastehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/137
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/137New Internationalist magazineDeep disconnect
I once had the misfortune to meet someone who claimed that he found buying a stack of t-shirts from the uber-cheap retail giant Primark to wear for a couple of days each and then discard easier than going through the bother of actually washing his clothes.
I don’t know if it was one of those things said just for effect, but there is a deep disconnect between the image of affordable abundance that fast fashion relies upon and the damage done. From the environmental ravages of growing cheap cotton to the batteries of workers in exploitative conditions, there is a chain of misery behind the bargain. The costs remain mainly in the Global South, the ‘benefits’ mainly in the wealthy countries.
A recent newspaper report says 100 billion such garments are made every year. A chunk of this obscene surplus, after its short life with the purchaser, will not be reused but dumped or sent to be recycled in a place like Panipat in India. There it will be shredded and turned into the coarse $2 blankets that get handed out by aid agencies after disasters – which fall apart after a year. Now even this dismal recycling is threatened by cheap fleece blankets (essentially plastic) from China.
All this is a world away from the shop front. Where does responsibility for this mountain of waste lie – with the unknowing (uncaring?) purchaser, the industrial producer or an entire culture lulled into believing this is the order of things?
Elsewhere in this issue, we welcome back John Schumaker, who takes The Big Story’s focus on waste one logical step further in a chilling exploration of what consumer culture is doing to the human personality. ]]>Thu, 1 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000Making peace in a world at warhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/136
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/136New Internationalist magazineWorld in pieces, world at peace
The city centre felt safe, once you got used to the soldiers on patrol. But as we drove out to a former stronghold of Boko Haram on the edge of Maiduguri – where I travelled for this month’s Big Story – the houses and tents gave out to arid scrubland and the feeling of safety drained away. The land was flat as a pancake, but for a split second I felt dizzy, like I was looking out over a precipice. That fleeting sensation of insecurity was just a hint of the constant danger facing millions living in conflict zones. The world must get better at ending wars – if we don’t, the World Bank warns, 60 per cent of the world’s poorest people will be living in violent, ‘fragile’ countries by 2030.
In search of answers, we tune in to the people who are most impacted by Nigeria’s complex crisis – those at the grassroots whose voices are drowned out by the roar of guns.
A focus towards peacemakers rather than warmongers reveals new stories from all over the world – of courage, survival and recovery – that contain the keys to unlock peace.
New Internationalist has always sought out diverse voices – and now, in this redesigned relaunch issue, we are proud to introduce new columnists from different regions of the world. As a longer, bimonthly publication, we have more space for in-depth features. These include a personal take on meritocracy by New Internationalist founding editor Peter Adamson; the out-of-the-box thinking of ‘What if’ envisaging a world without borders; and a ‘cartoon history’ that retells the little-known story of Congo’s post-colonial hero, Patrice Lumumba. We feel the new form fits New Internationalist’s goals better; we hope you agree.
And finally, do look out for our new shop catalogue, enclosed.]]>Sat, 1 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000The next financial crisishttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/135
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/135New Internationalist magazineExotic monstrosities
Ten years ago I took an entry-level economics class at school. It was September 2008. Lehman Brothers had just filed for bankruptcy. ‘It’s certainly an interesting time to be studying economics!’ the teacher said. It was – but you wouldn’t have known from the syllabus. There was nothing about the financial system. There were, however, plenty of elegant abstractions, showing the intersection of supply and demand in a timeless, spaceless universe.
This blind spot for finance, I discovered researching this issue, extends to the economics profession generally. More worryingly, the complexity of the financial system eclipses even its practitioners. Fabrice Tourre, the only Wall Street trader convicted of anything in relation to the global financial crisis, sent off an email to his girlfriend in 2007 when he knew something was wrong: ‘[I’m] standing in the middle of all these complex, highly levered, exotic trades [I’ve] created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities [sic]!!!’
Fortunately, there is a growing constituency of progressive, unorthodox economists who do understand these exotic monstrosities. And when I reached out to them to speculate about possible candidates for the next financial crisis, they were all too ready to contribute: the Eurozone, trade wars, shadow banking, central banks… At least next time we won’t be surprised when it happens.
A positive prospect on the horizon is the redesigned and relaunched New Internationalist. From September 2018 we will become a bimonthly publication, giving us more space to go in-depth, with long-form features, more visual treatments and, as always, a rigorous sense of inquiry into the political, economic and social issues of our day and our world.]]>Sun, 1 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000A better media is possiblehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/134
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/134New Internationalist magazineSomething good?
Not so long ago, reporters ‘becoming the story’ was taboo, journalists writing about the media, a navel gaze too far. Leave that to the academics.
But, like it or not, today’s chaotic and unpredictable media landscape is a news story in its own right. And one that contains several key elements of drama – including existential threat. If you include social media platforms – now the most common means by which people access news – hardly a day goes by without a novel twist or dire warning, thanks to their activities.
So, for this month’s Big Story we set aside the old taboos and tackle the topic head on, taking an emphatically solutions-oriented approach.
Which can also be said of Divyanshu Ganatra, a clinically blind outdoors enthusiast, who is featured in the Making Waves section. He has started an adventure-sports, not-for-profit organization for those experiencing disability-related stigma in India. While this edition’s Country Profile takes us to Costa Rica, where we catch up with the unexpected election victory of President Carlos Alvarado Quesada, who beat a socially conservative, evangelical Christian opponent, tipped to win after whipping up popular sentiment against gay marriage. All of which reminds us that even in these most gloomy of times, you never quite know what might happen next. It might even be something good.]]>Fri, 1 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000Public ownership rises againhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/133
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/133New Internationalist magazineThe common interest
Imagine if the air that we breathe were privatized. Companies would allocate it for payment and profit, and, one would hope, throw in a bit of quality control.
A completely crazy idea, of course, but it puts into perspective just how much of what we consider public goods or the commons has already been carved up. In many parts of the world, even water – the next of life’s essentials – is already in private hands. No-one grows or makes it, yet corporations are allowed to control it.
For over four decades the mantra of ‘private good, public bad’ repeated by global financial institutions and proponents of small (read ‘corporate’) government has fed the fiction that the private sector is better, more efficient at almost anything. The notion barely registers that private profits made from public goods and services deplete the commons even further.
Despite flop after expensive flop requiring public bailout and tales of corporate corruption that match anything levelled at state bureaucracies, the drive to privatize is still in full vroom. Except, now counter currents are also flowing. Often at the city and citizen level, there is an upsurge of public ownership, showing that it can be done and done better in the common interest. This edition’s Big Story celebrates this highly significant shift, while not glossing over the difficulties posed by the hostile climate in which it is occurring.
In our other features, we travel to the island of Bougainville for a classic tale of the resource curse. After a history of strife related to mining, followed by a hard-fought victory for eco-rebels, the possible exploitation of the island’s fabulous mineral wealth is stirring up old tensions.]]>Tue, 1 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000Humanitarianism under attackhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/132
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/132New Internationalist magazineWho cares?
While I was researching this magazine, the offices of the international NGO Save the Children were bombed in Afghanistan. This was bookended by two suicide attacks in Kabul, one using an ambulance. Aid organizations were running out of superlative terms to reject the horror. Harrowing. Unacceptable. Unjustifiable. The International Committee for the Red Cross tweeted in response ‘Do not attack civilians’ over and over until its 240 characters were used up.
As designers were laying out this edition, the Syrian government intensified attacks on Eastern Ghouta, home to 400,000 trapped residents. UNICEF gave up trying to use words altogether. Instead, they released a blank press release – a first for a UN communications office.
There have been times, working on this magazine, that I’ve felt similarly lost for words. But I feel now, somehow, more hopeful than when I started – despite being fully cognisant of the horrors. Maybe because every person I have spoken to in the aid world refuses to accept the idea that some lives are worth more than others. Maybe it’s their catching admiration for the people they support and work alongside and the innate capacity of humans to survive and rebuild.
As I have gained a better understanding of the current threats to the humanitarian endeavour, I have been able to appreciate what has been achieved – and how much worse it could be if we did not keep alight the belief that human suffering, however far away, demands an international response.
We’ve got a special focus on the Middle East this month in our book reviews, Worldbeater profile and other features, along with a splash of Brazil via our new Letter from the Cabalo Seco Afro-indigenous community.]]>Sun, 1 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000Black Lives Matterhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/131
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/131New Internationalist magazineA rallying cry
I spent many years trying to ignore my blackness. A futile effort growing up in an almost all-white area of rural Britain. The differences were not just in how I looked but also in the experiences I had and would continue to have for the rest of my life.
In a world where racism exists, we can’t ignore race. The US as a country has been forced to realize this through viral videos of the killing of black people, and the galvanizing power of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has become a global force.
Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry for a generation of black activists around the world, from the US to the UK, Australia to Brazil – as featured in this month’s Keynote.
As they build links across borders, one of the most empowering things about these struggles is that they make their blackness a source of strength, building on a long history of black resistance. There are so many stories to tell – many more than would fit in this magazine.
Elsewhere, we explore other forms of resistance – including the bravery of an indigenous lawyer in Mexico, fighting to protect her community from oil companies; and, after five years, we revisit Mozambique where landowners are continuing to resist being bought out by foreign firms.]]>Thu, 1 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000What's left for the young?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/130
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/130New Internationalist magazineForever young...
A sobering realization: I have 11 months left of being young. Well, to be more precise, I have 11 months left until my 16-25 Young Person’s Railcard – a little orange voucher that entitles me to a third off ticket prices on Britain’s dysfunctional railways – expires for good. I recently renewed it for the last time with a sense of wistful dread; I’ll soon be cast out into the world of responsible adulthood.
Or will I? Only a few weeks ago, the rightwing Conservative government, desperate to rally young people flocking to the Labour opposition, announced a pilot scheme: the millennial railcard. This would introduce the same fare discount for people up to the age of 30. Just like that, I felt my youth extend by another five years.
The railcard is a telling development: you know the economy is in dire straits when even 30-year-olds can’t be expected to pay adult rates. It relates to an idea that lingered in my mind as I researched this edition’s Big Story: millennials are trapped in permanent adolescence, locked in a straitjacket of youth.
Speaking to and reading about under-employed and resourceful young people, from graduates in the Democratic Republic of Congo to migrants in Naples, I saw the outlines of an exhausted generation who want nothing more than to grow up.
The stereotype of millennials as work-shy and mollycoddled faded under scrutiny. As I hope this collection of stories demonstrates, they are a cohort who work ceaselessly: both to survive and, crucially, to create the conditions for a better future.
As this is the first issue of another Brave New Year it also carries the Unreported Year, which focuses on stories that were sidelined by the dominant media in 2017, such as indigenous resistance to mining projects in Brazil and ‘artivists’ demanding peace in South Sudan.
At the back is a Q&amp;A that evokes another generation of young radicals, as New Internationalist’s founding editor, Peter Adamson, recalls how student campaigning in the early 1970s was the springboard for starting this magazine.]]>Mon, 1 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000Clampdown! Criminalizing dissenthttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/129
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/129New Internationalist magazineResisting the squeeze on public space
It’s hard sometimes to get the balance right.
At the New Internationalist we strive to tell the unvarnished truth which can be dauntingly negative. But we try to leaven it with positive news. When it comes to the subject of December’s Big Story on the authoritarian assault on democratic rights around the world, one is in danger of being swamped by negativity.
To balance, we sought out an example of a fertile political space with a record of creative alternative-building. Catalonia seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Then all of a sudden the determined but usually gentle Catalans became ground zero in the assault on democratic rights with bleeding senior citizens being dragged out of polling booths by Spanish police. Whatever the ultimate results of the current independence struggle, Catalans have a proud record of building radical democratic alternatives especially in their economic lives.
In this issue we make common, if informal, cause with the international NGO Civicus, which is leading the way in the fight to defend democratic space around the world. As the number of examples of state and corporate assault on the right to dissent mount it becomes crucial to build effective coalitions to defend our basic rights. This issue of the magazine is a contribution to the effort to do just that.
Elsewhere in this edition, we catch up with Pablo Beltrán, the guerrilla leader from the ELN at a critical point in the peace talks with the Colombian government; and we take a look at Port Augusta, the town in Australia that gave up coal for solar.]]>Fri, 1 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000Humans vs robotshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/127
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/127New Internationalist magazineWe are not the robots
1978. I still wore flared trousers while everyone else had graduated to skinny bottoms. I had just entered my teens and my soundtrack was Kraftwerk rather than the racket of punk.
‘We are the robots, do do do doo,’ I’d sing, arms jerking in a robotic dance, while the music blared from the family stereo. Back then, robots were definitely ‘of the future’. And the wave of new tech that has since transformed our lives with giant leaps in automation, robotics, computing and communications technology was barely taking shape.
Today many would describe automation as a tsunami. The pace of change is accelerating, affecting our jobs, privacy, notions of governance and, increasingly, promising a rigid technocratic future. At times, it seems like technology itself will dictate how we live, rather than playing a subordinate, enabling role. ‘We are the robots’ becomes a bitterly ironic refrain.
At such times it is useful to remind ourselves that it is not the tech that is at fault but the motives of those who jostle to control it. And when it is corporate players setting the agenda, that means we have a serious fight on our hands.
Other features in this edition highlight some of the struggles that make us human – whether that be patients bending the rules to access drugs, exploited migrant workers rising up in Lebanon, or a savvy Rastafarian lawyer leading the charge for cannabis freedom.]]>Wed, 1 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000Brazil's soft couphttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/126
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/126New Internationalist magazineRebranding dictatorship in Latin America
Not so long ago Brazil was a country with both a booming economy and an enviably progressive set of social policies.
Today, almost exactly one year since Dilma Rousseff’s ‘impeachment’ (which many call a ‘coup’), Latin America’s most populous nation is in social, political and economic meltdown.
Each day brings a new government initiative to pillage on behalf of the super-rich. Every news bulletin delivers another instalment in a corruption saga that is shaping up to be the world’s biggest.
‘We always knew there was corruption,’ one young Brazilian journalist told me, ‘but the scale of it, the number of politicians and the amount of money involved, has left us totally disgusted and demoralized.’
Nothing is predictable. ‘Anyone who can tell you what is going to happen is certainly ill-informed,’ another journalist, a veteran, quipped.
At various points, while researching this month’s Big Story, it looked like Brazil’s corruption-mired Michel Temer could not possibly hold on to the top job. At the time of writing, he is still in place.
Then there is the case of ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who could win next year’s presidential elections – or could be in prison.
These are the big players. But, being New Internationalist, we also tune in to the people who are most impacted by Brazil’s extraordinary and complex crisis – the people at the grassroots, whose voices are increasingly drowned out by the elite roar of privilege.
Elsewhere in this edition, Cynthia Enloe unpicks the persistence of patriarchy, which she says ‘is as hip as football millionaires and Silicon Valley start-ups’, while Arun Gandhi, Mahatma’s grandson, talks to Danielle Batist about his grandfather’s ideals, technology and Trump.]]>Sun, 1 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000Bad Educationhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/125
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/125New Internationalist magazineBeing the best
Do you ever get that ‘I wish I’d been a teacher’ moment?
I get it, sometimes – usually at my seven-year-old son’s ‘sharing assemblies’. Hundreds of children fill the school hall, which is decorated by supersized creations – paintings, mobiles, 3-D shapes. Parents squeeze in at the back, teachers line the sides, using emphatic sign language, fingers to lips, to keep this jiggling, fidgety mass quiet and seated.
The headteacher welcomes everyone and cracks a few jokes. On stage, Year 2 pass around a microphone with excruciating slowness, making mostly inaudible statements about a recent school trip, to parents’ collective, ill-concealed delight.
The older children are gracious. They are used to this. Everyone gets a turn here – it’s built in the fabric of the school. The assemblies are all delivered under the motto over the stage that reads ‘Live, love, learn and be happy’. This order is important and not coincidental. Headteacher Rachel Crouch – a lifelong subscriber to New Internationalist, from whom you will hear more shortly – has always made hers an inclusive, welcoming school with equity at its heart.
But in this magazine we look at how the noble endeavour that is education – the kind that gives you the ‘wish I’d been a teacher moment’ – is under threat from powerful business interests, while introducing you to those working to take things in a different direction.
Elsewhere in the September edition, we unpick why stories that claim to reveal a biological basis to differences between men and women are so persistently popular and learn about how private corporations in Peru are hiring out the police to do their dirty work.]]>Fri, 1 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000The Equality Effecthttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/124
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/124New Internationalist magazineHolding on to hope
Why should we hold out any hope for greater equality when the very richest people in the world are taking more and more? Pessimistic reactions are commonplace. But there is often great pessimism just at the point when a great injustice becomes apparent – when it becomes widely accepted that it is an injustice and people start to correct it.
The evidence that inequality is harmful comes largely from the rich world. In the 1960s affluent countries were so similar that it was not possible to see the negative effects of greater inequality. But since then some have become much more unequal, providing us with outcomes that illustrate the harm so well.
Today, for many people – especially in the most unequal of countries such as the US, Brazil, the UK and South Africa – the idea that your children and their children might live more equitable lives can seem like a pipedream. But evidence from the more equal affluent nations – as well as from a growing number of poorer countries where inequalities are now falling – shows what is possible. This evidence is fully laid out in my new book The Equality Effect.
Elsewhere in the magazine Ana Palacios’ remarkable photo reportage from Togo and Benin brings to life efforts to ensure a safer future for trafficked children. And our Making Waves profile of Indian activist Prafulla Samantara demonstrates how not giving up can sometimes bear fruit.]]>Sat, 1 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000Homelessnesshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/123
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/123New Internationalist magazineThe meaning of home
I still remember buying our first (and only) house decades ago; pinching ourselves that we’d made such an impossible leap into the financial void.
It was a late autumn afternoon when I slid the key in the lock and tentatively opened the front door for the first time. The rooms were empty and echoing; shadows of past lives seemed to hang in the air.
Then, gradually, that house became our home. We patched and painted the walls and filled the rooms with cast-off furniture. The closets and cupboards were crammed with stuff. And a mountain of memories piled up: babies, birthdays, dinner parties, Christmas mornings, first bicycle rides, play forts in the basement – life.
For me, that’s the core meaning of ‘home’ – it’s bricks-and-mortar, yes. But it’s more than that. It is also shelter wrapped in memory. That sense of security and of belonging is lost when people are homeless. But how do we calculate our loss when we are unable or unwilling to meet the challenge of housing those who have fallen between the cracks?
In the words of the old Phil Ochs’ song: ‘There but for fortune go you or I’.
The idea of home also comes under attack when the physical environment is threatened – as in our feature on the depredations of the sand-miners in Cambodia. And from Nigeria we report on the enormous effort to make the country polio-free.]]>Thu, 1 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000West Papua - Freedom in sight?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/122
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/122New Internationalist magazineFive decades of defiance
If you’ve never heard of West Papua, you’re not alone.
It continues to amaze me how this 50-year freedom struggle on the world’s second-largest island is still so little-known. But then, I might not have heard of it myself if it wasn’t for Benny Wenda.
Wenda, an Indigenous leader from the Lani tribe, was arrested by the Indonesian government in 2002 for peacefully advocating for West Papuan independence. Imprisoned on spurious charges, tortured and likely to be killed, he escaped from prison and reached the UK, where he gained political asylum here in Oxford.
An accomplished strategist and diplomat with a gentle, unassuming style, Wenda has spent years building international support for his people’s cause. From Oxford, he launched the Free West Papua campaign, which is the reason why I and many others have now heard of this struggle.
New Internationalist got there before me. Back in 2002, edition 344 was titled ‘West Papua Rising’. Benny Wenda was carrying a copy when he was arrested, which he believes may have caused the Indonesian government to hold back in their treatment of him. This evidence that the world was watching ‘protected me. It may even have saved my life.’
West Papua today stands on a knife-edge between freedom and disaster. In this issue, we hear the voices of people living under occupation and fighting to be free. We learn about the unifying power of Melanesian music, expose the extractive companies that are profiting from Papuan repression, and hear Indigenous leaders lay out their visions of the new country they want to build. With enough international support, those visions could at last become reality.]]>Mon, 1 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000Populism rises againhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/121
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/121New Internationalist magazineIt’s crunch time! Final chance to join us
On 1 March we pushed the button and held our breath.
We had just launched our Community Share Offer inviting you, our readers and supporters, to buy into a better story and become co-owners of New Internationalist. Despite all the groundwork and detailed planning, we had shot off into uncharted territory.
I can at least reveal that we are breathing again. Your response has been immediate, tremendous and humbling. Within the first few days we reached a quarter of our target. The amazing messages you sent us (see Letters) have made us feel that you know us better than we know ourselves. On behalf of the entire NI co-operative – Thank You and Welcome.
I wish I could tell you we have landed safely – but as I write there is still a way to go. The share offer runs until 6 April at factsandheart.org. Our target of £500,000 is all-or-nothing – if we don’t reach it, we won’t draw down a penny. To invest, go online at factsandheart.org, or call us on +44 (0)1865 413304 (UK) or (613) 826 1319 (US and Canada).
The coming weeks will be critical. In that time, for want of a working crystal ball, we will be doing our damnedest to reach all the like-minded people we possibly can to make this happen. Please help spread the word.
Many of our new owners have been telling us how, in a landscape of media distortion, fake news and alternative facts, you appreciate what we have to offer. Coincidentally, this wonky landscape is the setting for this month’s Big Story, which examines the frightening rise of rightwing populism. As always, we also consider the possible remedies.]]>Sat, 1 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000The exceptionally brave - 500th issuehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/120
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/120New Internationalist magazineOur 500th issue – time for courage and change
It won’t last, the young founders of New Internationalist were told 500 issues ago.
‘The main problem was that no-one really believed that a magazine on international development was viable,’ recalls Peter Adamson, one of those young founders. ‘We worked on a leap of faith that there was a large enough potential readership for a magazine like the NI.’
Well, 44 years on, New Internationalist is still here and tackling the themes of global justice that are as relevant today as they were in 1973.
It hasn’t been a smooth ride. There were many periods when it looked as if New Internationalist wasn’t going to make it. At one such point two staff members re-mortgaged their home to keep the presses rolling. But then, at another, worldwide circulation hit more than 80,000.
Apart from an unusually strong focus on marketing and financial planning, what kept the magazine alive was its mission – to report on ‘the people, the ideas, the action for global justice’. Plus, the fundamental belief that change is possible.
If there is one quality that sparks change, it’s courage. It seems fitting, therefore, that for this 500th issue we are focusing on ‘the brave’: courageous individuals who are risking life and limb to make a difference. You may not have heard of them – we have purposely sought people who are not all over the mainstream.
New Internationalist is not a mainstream organization. Its news values are not those of the herd-driven corporate media. We often tackle topics ignored by others. We are not owned by any proprietor, pulling the strings behind the scenes. We only accept advertising that passes certain ethical criteria. Our books are informed by the same editorial principles as the magazine. And our mailorder operation – the Ethical Shop – sources products that are ecological and fairly traded.
Above all we owe our continued existence to you – our readers, supporters and contributors. Which is why we are reaching out to you now at this critical time.
It’s no secret that many magazines and newspapers are in a state of crisis. The internet has transformed the media landscape. On the good side, we are read by many more people now, with our website getting around two million visits a year.
But a business model based on readers buying printed magazines delivers little in an era of free content. In the past few months we have stabilized subscription numbers and seen a slight increase. But it’s not enough for survival.
Which is why we are going public – but in a special way. We are launching a Community Share Offer that will enable people like you to invest in New Internationalist, to own it. It’s a new way of funding independent media which has been successfully trialled by some small publications and is catching on.
The media is too important to be in the hands of a few press barons, which is the current state of play. A democracy needs media plurality and to make this possible it needs diverse ownership models too.
You can now be part of the change, part of the media you want to see. Together we can stand up to the Rupert Murdochs of this world. With Donald Trump in the White House and rightwing nationalism spreading across the globe, we need ‘new internationalism’ now more than ever.
Together we can be part of the chorus that says: Yes, a better world and a better media are possible. We’ll buy into that.
New Internationalist’s share offer is now live! To invest, or find out more, go to factsandheart.org Or call us on +44(0)1865 413304 in the UK, or (613)826 1319 in North America/Canada.]]>Wed, 1 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000African villagehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/119
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/119New Internationalist magazineSisters and brothers - Three decades of change in an African village
Compelled by a news agenda with the attention span of a flea, it is rare enough for journalists to return to stories they have previously covered. But to return to the same African village community every 10 years, as I have since 1985, is more unusual still – especially when there is no ‘news value’ to the story and when the individuals featured are ‘unknown’. I regard this long-term project in Burkina Faso as probably my most significant journalistic achievement in what is now quite a long career – and the New Internationalist’s readiness to publish it perhaps indicates what sets it apart as a magazine.
In 17 pages there is only so much you can show, of course. And for that reason we have made much more use than usual of the extra resources and infinite space that our website affords us. We have created an internet hub that offers many more ‘Then and Now’ photographs than we have been able to include here on the printed page, more detail on particular stories as they developed, as well as a few short video clips. Please do take up our invitation to delve deeper by going to nin.tl/villagehub
We’re also pleased to announce that our web documentary on life after Ebola was highly commended at the AIB broadcasting awards last year. You can still catch it here: nin.tl/backintouch
Finally, with the March edition under way – our 500th – we are working hard behind the scenes on perhaps our most ambitious plan in 44 years of publishing at New Internationalist – a community share issue that will give you the opportunity to co-own us.
We’re on the brink of something huge!
In March we’re launching the biggest ever media community share offer and inviting you – our amazing readers – to become our co-owners.
So, what’s a community share offer? It’s when a group of people who believe in something come together to make it happen. You buy community shares, but these are not the same as corporate shares – they’re not driven by profit. You invest in the world you want to live in and in return you become a co-owner of New Internationalist.
This investment, underpinned by a robust business plan, will transform what we do and create an ethical and sustainable media business model for the 21st century.
Want to find out more? Please register your interest online at: nin.tl/own-us]]>Sun, 1 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000The coming war on Chinahttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/118
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/118New Internationalist magazineI am delighted to be back in the New Internationalist as guest editor. This issue’s keynote and supporting articles are the result of two years’ work on a documentary film about the shift of the world’s economic power east, to China, and the US reaction to this challenge to its dominance. Losing its economic prowess, Washington has turned almost obsessively to its military might; and the prospect of nuclear war is no longer unthinkable. What I found in Asia, the Pacific and the US, was not only evidence of great risk and folly, but extraordinary resistance to a coming war among island people on the frontline: the Marshalls, Okinawa, Jeju: faraway places of which we may know little but which offer an inspiring example as they face the most powerful military machine. This NI is both a tribute to them and a warning, and will, I hope, raise an issue we all need to understand and act upon.
Also in this issue is a special feature on Tax avoidance by Richard Swift and Josh Eisen. They write:
One of the great privileges involved in writing for NI is the chance to vent over an issue that has been getting under one’s skin. The obsession from almost all political quarters that we should be ‘tightening our belts’ is an excellent example of this. It’s usually people who can barely afford said belts who are asked to do the tightening – refugees, the unemployed, those facing health challenges – in short, the vulnerable. So with a topic like tax avoidance we get to turn the tables and ask why the vaunted rich and powerful – who make much of government ‘waste’ yet live lives of frivolous expense – can’t at least pony up their fair share. Very satisfying.]]>Thu, 1 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000Peace in Colombia? Hope and fearshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/116
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/116New Internationalist magazinePeace in Colombia?
This could so easily have been the best news story in a year when the world seems especially fraught with conflict and misery. The two main signatories of a historic agreement to end the longest war in the western hemisphere, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebel leader Rodrigo Londoño, were even being tipped for the Nobel Peace Prize (Santos has since won the award, for his efforts).
Then came the result of the plebiscite on the peace accord – and the devastating realization that 50.2 per cent of Colombian voters had ticked the ‘NO’ box. Our Big Story for this month looks at what happens now to Colombia’s tortuous peace process – and finds reason for hope.
We also pick over two subjects that are in and out of the news with some regularity. The first is the question of a universal basic income – usually seen as ‘a good thing’ on the Left. But is there a destructive agenda at work behind its championing by sections of the Right? And then there’s PrEP, the medication that could drastically cut HIV transmission. Should it be readily available and publicly funded? And for whom?
There’s much more besides – a frontline report from Burma’s drug crisis, the views of Dutch physicians who perform euthanasia, and a fascinating exploration of why commercial competition almost always does a disservice to technical innovation. Lively thinking in sober prose.]]>Tue, 1 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000World Fiction Special - Exquisite short storieshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/115
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/115New Internationalist magazineStories that surprise
This issue of New Internationalist is rather different from the magazine you normally expect, in that its central section is devoted to four short stories. There is one from each of the anthologies of stories from around the world that we have published over the past year: Cooked Up, a lively compilation of fiction with food-related themes; Water, a new collection from Short Story Day Africa; The Daily Assortment of Astonishing Things and Other Stories, the latest anthology of the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing; and One World Two, a follow-up to our successful book One World in which the writers’ geographical origins and cultural perspectives are even more diverse. The stories we have chosen are by: Krys Lee from South Korea; FT Kola from South Africa; the Cuban-American Ana Menéndez; and Efemia Chela, who hails from Zambia and Ghana. They can be seen as part of a new kind of ‘world writing’ that is emerging in the 21st century and are introduced by a conversation with Professor Elleke Boehmer of Oxford University – herself an acclaimed novelist – who explains how stories such as these are breaking down national and literary boundaries.
Also in this issue, we welcome back popular contributor Maria Golia for a one-off letter from Cairo, and turn the spotlight on President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines.]]>Sat, 1 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000Trade unions - rebuild, renew, resisthttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/114
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/114New Internationalist magazineA striking thought
It might just have been because I had my ear to the ground, but while I was researching this magazine, it seemed to me that the world had gone on strike. News cycles in May and June were reporting workers on strike in Britain (junior doctors, transport), France (transport), Italy (teachers), Belgium (transport), New York (communications), Greece (farmers, transport), Brazil (taxi drivers)... the list went on. I, like many others, no doubt, cheered them on while keeping my fingers crossed that I wouldn’t be inconvenienced by their actions.
Then I realized that, though each group was protesting against a particular injustice, as a whole they represented our best bet against a corporate, globalized world gone mad. Workers don’t go on strike lightly – they know that they will sacrifice pay and may also lose public support, or their jobs, or, in some countries, their lives. They strike as a last resort – because governments and employers won’t listen and because, long-term, a lot is at stake if they don’t.
So next time my travel plans are disrupted, or my routine doctor’s appointment cancelled, I will be trying to rise above the irritation and remember that trade unionists are fighting not just for themselves, but for us all.
Also in this issue, Jo Eckersley and Ashwin Hemmathagama report from Sri Lanka on a country still struggling to unite seven years after the end of the civil war, and we meet Afghanistan’s inspirational ‘mother of education’, Sakena Yacoobi.]]>Thu, 1 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000Smiley-faced monopolistshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/113
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/113New Internationalist magazineThe digital titans unmasked
‘It’s a Faustian pact, but hell seems a long way away’
‘Yes, but personally, I don’t mind,’ said a good friend and dedicated Facebook user. We had been talking about privacy on the internet and the ever-increasing power of the digital giants.
My friend’s approach is undoubtedly shared by many of us, who make regular use of efficient and immensely successful services like Google, Facebook and Amazon – the main companies that feature in this month’s Big Story. We have traded our privacy for something we find useful and put on hold our support for ethical shopping in exchange for the ease of low (or no) price and almost-instant gratification. It’s a Faustian pact, alright... and hell may be nearer than we think.
I have been surprised, while working on this month’s Big Story, just how far down the line we are; how deeply exploitative and anti-democratic is this new ‘surveillance capitalism’ under which we now live. This month’s contributors include such leading lights in the field as security expert Bruce Schneier, psychologist Robert Epstein and engineer and software activist Prabir Purkayastha. Maybe their arguments will prompt a bit of a rethink among those of my friend’s disposition...
Elsewhere in this month’s issue we visit Toronto’s world-famous HotDocs festival, catch up with Máxima Acuña, the courageous Peruvian farmer who is standing up to US mining giant Newmont, and report on Malaysia’s slide towards authoritarianism.]]>Fri, 1 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000Love in the time of Ebolahttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/112
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/112New Internationalist magazineEbola, as told by Sierra Leoneans
This edition is something of a journalistic experiment. It’s the product of a collaboration with a remarkable group of Sierra Leonean citizen reporters. Trained by media advocates On Our Radar, they give us a privileged insight into the aftershocks of Ebola in this corner of West Africa.
The reporters took me on a journey from the coastal capital Freetown in the west to the early epicentre in the remote east; their stories reveal Ebola’s lasting impact on friendship, community and the ties that bind us to one another.
More than half of this magazine’s Big Story is given over to reporters’ accounts, where they relate their experiences, and those of their friends and neighbours, in their own words (see Where my father lies and Everything is on my shoulders).
This joint-effort storytelling is thanks to a partnership with On Our Radar, who use new technology to bring people from the margins on to the front page. The citizen reporter pieces you read in this magazine grew out of SMS messages on a hub that functions like a glass-sided story beehive – visit nin.tl/AfterEbolaHub to see how ideas germinated and took root to become features.
This month, the magazine is actually only the half of it. We are also delighted to be publishing web documentary vignettes from our citizen reporters. Don’t miss it: newint.org/after-ebola
This multiplatform Ebola project has been made possible by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) via its Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme.
Elsewhere in the magazine, we reveal the inner workings of special tribunals that we will be seeing more of if TTP and TTIP trade deals are successful.]]>Wed, 1 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000Technology justicehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/111
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/111New Internationalist magazineShame and seduction
A few months ago, new friends of ours came to visit for dinner. So shocked were they by the squat television in our living room that they insisted we accept a flat-screen version they had going spare.
Now, I’m usually of the ‘use it until it wears out’ school when it comes to my possessions and I was quite fond of the old box we had – its colours were still fine, it did its job. It was far from obsolete.
But perhaps a combination of shame at being perceived as Stone Agers, the inability to say no to a gift and the determination of our friends, meant that a few days later they duly delivered an enormous flat-screen job. The perfectly serviceable old faithful was despatched to the municipal recycling point, where proper recycling is likely to be the last thing that happens to it.
That box has been on my mind quite a bit, especially as this edition is all about technology – appropriate, inappropriate, the excesses of the West, the deprivation of much of the rest.
Also this month, we have coverage of the efforts to declare Ecocide a punishable crime against peace. And a feature on the women fighters of Rojava in northern Syria: democrats and passionate idealists who show a different way is possible even in the direst circumstances.]]>Sun, 1 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000Last stand - Saving the world's forestshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/110
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/110New Internationalist magazineTime to stop the plunder
One of my vivid boyhood memories is of scrambling amongst granite outcrops of the Canadian Shield in the shimmering heat of a July afternoon.
I emerged from the forest into mottled sunshine and stretched out on flat, lichen-covered rocks, high above the black waters of a quiet lake. Stately white pines touched the sky. Underfoot was a cushion of sharply perfumed pine needles. The air was calm.
That moment of perfection emerges still on those rare occasions when I am able to venture into the woods. But the truth is that like many of us in our modern world I’m a city guy. Most of the trees I encounter are in my local park.
And that’s a problem. Because we’re losing our intimate relationship and understanding of forests as the world urbanizes. We don’t see the clear-cut hillsides, the splintered stumps and the plunder. They are outside our field of vision. Partly this stems from our mistaken sense that the natural wealth of the planet is boundless and inexhaustible. But this is folly.
As this month’s Big Story argues, we can no longer afford to cut-and-run. The forces that are destroying the world’s last ancient forests need to be resisted, and the communities whose lives and culture are rooted there, defended. At stake is nothing less than the ability of the land, water and wildlife to provide for future generations.
Elsewhere in this issue we welcome the return of New Zealand-based contributor, John F Schumaker, who explains the difference between depression and demoralization in our modern consumer culture.]]>Fri, 1 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000Blood brothers - Saudi Arabia and the Westhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/109
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/109New Internationalist magazineSaudi Arabia – making friends, making enemies
The Saudi regime won’t like this magazine. Nor will the Western governments who kowtow to it while exploiting its wealth and paranoia – which have been on full show recently.
The Saudi justice ministry threatened to sue a Twitter user who compared the regime with ISIS after poet Ashraf Fayadh was sentenced to death ‘for spreading atheism and disrespecting the prophet’. This was met with an international #SueMeSaudi campaign.
Humour is a good response to absurd displays of power. But in the kingdom itself, there is little place for it. There is no media independence; it is effectively controlled by the royal family. It’s illegal to speak to foreign journalists without authorization and what you say could easily land you in jail.
Less easy to control is social media, which has a tremendous take-up in Saudi Arabia but is also not without risks. The regime has invested in systems to track users and in digital media itself. One Saudi prince has a five-per-cent – the second largest – share in Twitter, for example.
What is guaranteed to please neither the Saudi ruling elite nor Western governments is our interview with Julian Assange. He talks about the latest batch of SaudiLeaks, the dissemination of which is punishable by 20 years in a Saudi jail. So do spread the word.
Elsewhere, we uncover a Nepalese orphanage scam and our Worldbeater takes a pop at mild reformer turned pompous autocrat, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, president of Turkey.]]>Tue, 1 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000Humanity adrift: why refugees deserve betterhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/108
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/108New Internationalist magazineDeath in peacetime
In October, I travelled to Lesvos, the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. I’ve been trying to work out ever since what it is that makes it so hard to forget.
We are not used to seeing loss first-hand, the bereaved families and interrupted lives.
But it isn’t just that. I’ve read numerous blogs by photographers and war correspondents who have seen death and destruction on a far wider scale yet can’t seem to get over Lesvos either.
I think it’s because these deaths in Europe are so infinitely avoidable. It isn’t dangerous to get to Greece from Turkey. A big, safe ferry crosses into Lesvos three times a week. But our border regime stops refugees from catching it. So they sell up and risk their lives, and those of their children, in smugglers’ boats to Europe.
By contrast, the dangers of the wars that refugees are fleeing are well known. Yet the deaths on our border are a result of the order that we impose on the world, not the chaos of conflict. Whatever logic has led us to this point, the result is madness, one that goes against every human instinct.
This Big Story adds New Internationalist’s voice to the chorus of outrage at our governments’ handling of the refugee crisis, but also draws hope from the humanity of those citizens who are rebelling against the securitization of the border, by helping people over it.
This month we also explore the camp at Calais, thanks to a cartoon supplement by Kate Evans, told with her characteristic warmth and humour.
Elsewhere, we have an essay from Mark Boyle that takes a stand against ‘mindless nonviolence’ and a visual treat, ‘The Unreported Year’, shining a light on the stories the world forgot in 2015.]]>Fri, 1 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +000010 economic mythshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/106
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/106New Internationalist magazineWrong prescription.
Does repeating a thing make it true? The followers of mainstream economic dogma must surely think ‘Yes’. After the financial crash of 2008 and the malaise ever since, they haven’t changed their tune much. Their prescriptions don’t work but the patients – you or me – are still being dosed with ‘freemarket’ medicine.
It’s enough to make one go a funny shade of green.
We’ve worked on this edition in the spirit of providing something of an antidote. The economic bottom line is inevitable, say the powers that be. Just the way things are. Well, we – and an ever-growing legion of dissenting economists and fed-up-to-the-back-teeth members of the general public – say, ‘No’. These cherished myths are causing real harm and we need to ditch them.
A big thank you to my co-writer and fellow myth-buster on The Big Story this month – former New Internationalist co-editor David Ransom, who has brought his wit, insight and engagement to bear on it.
Among other features this month is an unusual piece by Suprabha Seshan, who is director of a botanical sanctuary in South India. It’s the kind of ecological writing that has a heartbeat. Meanwhile, regular columnist Steve Parry’s ears are ringing after being subjected to much Twittering.]]>Tue, 1 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000Paris climate summithttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/105
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/105New Internationalist magazineHeroes, villains and why there is still hope.
When we agreed to guest-edit a magazine on the upcoming Paris climate talks, we felt some trepidation. We’d been at the Copenhagen summit in 2009 – one of us inside the conference centre, the other outside with the protesters – and the bad memories still felt fresh. Grassroots, frontline and Indigenous campaigners thrown out of the talks. Thousands of activists locked in cages by the Danish police. A final stitch-up non-deal from a handful of polluting governments, and the overinflated hopes of millions of people brought crashing down. Was it all about to happen again?
But in the course of putting together this magazine, we have spoken to climate-justice activists from all over the world. Much to our surprise, we’re now feeling unexpectedly hopeful. There’s plenty to play for in Paris, and while there are no easy victories to be grabbed, the global climate movement could be about to take a big leap forward.
The story of Paris has only just begun. We’d love to see it through to the end, and bring you voices and perspectives from the talks that the mainstream media will ignore. That’s why we’re launching a crowdfunding appeal to allow us to report from the frontlines in Paris. We’re excited at the prospect of taking New Internationalist into the thick of the action – but we need support from you, our readers, to make it happen. See here for how to donate, and we hope you’ll join us – virtually at least – on the Paris climate rollercoaster...]]>Sun, 1 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000The transgender revolutionhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/104
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/104New Internationalist magazineThe transgender revolution and how it could free us all
A couple of years ago, at a National Union of Journalists event in London, I heard a speaker from Trans Media Watch talking about the way in which the tabloid papers had ‘outed’ and hounded Lucy Meadows, a transgender schoolteacher who subsequently committed suicide.
The incident was an example of the gutter press at its most despicable – and ignorant. Trans Media Watch condemned it, of course. But they also set about working with even the most bigoted and offensive sections of the media to try to change the way in which transgender people and their issues were reported.
The work of transgender organizations is often two-fold – to provide practical and emotional support to transgender individuals, but also to undertake the massive task of educating non-trans or cisgender people.
This month’s Big Story shows some of the progress being made, as well as the many challenges ahead. Most of the stories and illustrations are the work of transgender writers and artists, from different countries, while invaluable help has come from Christabel Edwards and Jennie Kermode of Trans Media Watch.
Elsewhere in this edition: as Burma heads for the polls, what is in store for its ethnic minorities? Worldbeater, meanwhile, takes a closer look at Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister and darling of the ruthless.]]>Thu, 1 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000Syria’s good guys - Inside a forgotten revolutionhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/103
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/103New Internationalist magazineSyria – the good guys
Before the war, the best way to enjoy Syria was in complete ignorance. That’s what I did in 2005, when I arrived in Damascus as a tourist. For two weeks I explored the country’s Roman ruins and medieval markets, enthusing about the sophistication of the food and the friendliness of the people. Syria, as my guidebook put it, was ‘the Middle East’s best kept secret’.
It was not until the following year, when I returned to Damascus to live, that I started to see that Syria had secrets of its own. Buildings from which Syrians averted their eyes. Jails from which no one emerged. To walk these streets, as writer Rana Kabbani has said, was ‘to walk on pavements that were the ceilings of basements where political prisoners hung upside down by their feet’.
As my naïveté diminished, so my admiration for the Syrian people increased. After they rebelled against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in 2011, I followed their progress closely through the blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds where activists debate the revolution, the war, and the ongoing struggle to build a better Syria.
Their stories deserve to be far more widely known, and this magazine is a contribution towards that end. In putting it together, I have relied on the insight of Syrians far more expert than me, as well as the contributions of Syrian writers, artists and activists represented in these pages. My thanks and respect to them all.
Elsewhere in the issue, French economist Edouard Tétreau urges Pope Francis to take a stand against ‘insane money and alienating technologies’ when he visits the UN headquarters later this month.]]>Tue, 1 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000Capitalism is spinning out of controlhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/102
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/102New Internationalist magazineSeeking other paths
This month’s Big Story is a much-abbreviated version of my book SOS: Alternatives to Capitalism.*
Why SOS? SOS is, of course, a nautical term sent out by ships in distress meaning Save Our Souls. The title of this book adapts this to Save Our Species. And that, I believe, is what is at stake. Not next year perhaps, or even next decade, but certainly in the foreseeable future we are heading socially and ecologically down a slippery slope – the bottom of which promises a very hard landing. The main villain of the piece is our current system which is committed to runaway growth based on ecological destruction and levels of social inequality unimaginable just 30 or 40 years ago. SOS is an attempt to help us put on the brakes and show we have other options.
The purpose of this magazine – and the book from which it is drawn – is to tease out what such genuine alternatives to capitalism might look like. It looks at what the past experience of such alternatives has been, at the issues and problems that have haunted them – and some of the paths not taken. This is a bittersweet history of rich diversity marked by massacre, noble failure and tepid success. SOS then moves into the present to suggest ways out of the maze of life-threatening inequality and eco-catastrophe.
Elsewhere in the issue, we meet Masih Alinejad, the Iranian women’s rights campaigner making waves through social media; and Susana Baca, an award-winning singer-songwriter championing her marginalized Afro-Peruvian community.
* Special offers on book and e-book. See nin.tl/SOSoffer]]>Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000Fundamentalism - Power, politics and persuasionhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/101
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/101New Internationalist magazineThe value of doubt
India, the country I grew up in, experiences fundamentalism in tides. Upsurges are not spontaneous. They tend to be orchestrated by a particular party’s bid to gain and hold on to political power.
But then the tide goes out a bit, when the populace tires of the usual political mismanagement and the appeal to hard-core religion begins to be seen as the dangerous distraction it is. Meanwhile, the usual havoc has taken place – communities insulted, angry and driven asunder, rioting and murder, and the growth of a jackbooted assertiveness. Ready for the next eruption.
Why do people fall for it again and again? We could go right back to the colonial British administration’s policy of divide and rule. But maybe even they were only spreading a disease that already existed. When I asked one journalist what attracted ordinary people to such extreme thinking, I received the equivalent of an email snort: ‘So that they can lord it over the rest of us.’
One thing is certain, the bigotry and dogma of the fundamentalist mind takes no prisoners. Every religion is susceptible, not just those featuring in this edition, because fundamentalism is organized religion’s will to power. It is deeply political, of human rather than divine agency, and not in the least spiritual.
Preparing this edition has given me a new appreciation of the values of scepticism and doubt.
We also have two despatches this month from the fossil fuels frontier. One is a report on growing tensions in the Arctic as nations jostle to stake claim to undersea reserves. The other is on BP’s see-no-evil cosy relationship with Azerbaijan’s autocrats – what a gas!]]>Mon, 1 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000Global banking nowhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/100
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/100New Internationalist magazineDay of the zombies - banking laid bare
I’m not sure why I was trying to clear cat fur from under a bed, but as I did so I came across a packet of postcards I sent to my parents as a very young man. Almost all of them referred to money – or, rather, my lack of it. Oh, the humiliations of youth! In this respect, I fear nothing much changed thereafter – the craft of making money, let alone making money out of money, has proved not to be one of my talents. Maybe it’s just as well that some people have such a talent, but experience suggests to me that they are in a very small minority – and I can’t for the life of me see why it qualifies them to rule the world. Given that it does, I’m not entirely surprised to find the cause of the great banking meltdown morphing into its cure, or professional politicians coming to surpass bankers in their unpopularity.
Ask yourself how people fined $300 billion for malpractice can also make $1 trillion in profits, and there you have the current state of banking laid bare. In their utter foolishness, bankers may even have come to relish the blood sport of banker-bashing because it serves merely to underline its own futility, like bleating on about climate change. But, to my mind, the conflict between money and democracy has only just begun in earnest and for real.
Lithuania doesn’t often get coverage in our pages, but this month Daiva Repec˘kaite˙ reports on the growing interest in militarism in a country that is closely monitoring the conflict in Ukraine. And regular cartoonist Polyp offers a witty but sobering one-page Big Bad World which will ring true for all, parents or not.]]>Fri, 1 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000Total control - is Monsanto unstoppable?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/99
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/99New Internationalist magazineMonsanto... coming to a field near you?
As the conflict in Ukraine erupts, subsides, erupts, subsides, there seems to be one entity that cannot lose.
Biotech-giant Monsanto has an office in Ukraine. In 2013 a proposed $17-billion IMF loan to Ukraine would, as a condition, have opened up the country to genetically modified crops. But then-president Viktor Yanukovych rejected the European Union agreement linked to the loan, deciding to go with a Russian deal instead. Yanukovych didn’t last long – ousted in February 2014 – and the country descended into conflict.
A set-back for Monsanto? It seems not. The company is still pressing ahead with a $140-million non-GM corn seed factory in western Ukraine. And if the region sinks into all-out war, that is good for Monsanto too, says trader and investment analyst Brian Kelly. Conflict will constrict the wheat supply from ‘breadbasket’ Ukraine, forcing a big price hike. And when wheat prices rise, says Kelly, so does the share price of the world’s biggest supplier of seed – Monsanto. Meanwhile, influential pro-GM interests in several countries, including Britain and Australia, are pressing for a more ‘open-door’ policy towards genetically engineered crops and agri-giants like Monsanto. All the more reason for turning our attention to this most controversial and controlling of corporations – and the civil-society action against it that is spreading across the world.
Elsewhere in this month’s magazine, Bangladeshi photographer Jannatul Mawa struck upon the simple but ingenious idea of asking middle-class Dhaka dwellers to be photographed with their maids. The result is, well, revealing...]]>Wed, 1 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000The great green energy grabhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/97
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/97New Internationalist magazine‘Corporate renewables vs people’s power’
We must demand something better.
Last week, a fuel poverty activist told me this story. She’d been invited as the token campaigner to a corporate energy event, and was chatting to a rep from the notorious price-hiking frack-happy utility company British Gas. She decided to ask him a cheeky question: ‘What will you do if we get our way? If the world switches away from fossil fuels, to better insulation and renewable energy? What happens to your company then?’
The utility rep replied: ‘Well, I guess we’ll just move into insulation and renewable energy.’
This suggestion filled her – and me – with dread. It’s easy to get caught up in the urgency of climate change, and assume that we just need more renewable energy, and it doesn’t matter exactly what it is or who provides it. This magazine explores why, and how, we must demand something better: an energy system controlled by people, not by corporations, providing genuinely clean energy to everyone who needs it.
Continuing the environmental theme, our Argument this month provocatively asks: if you care about climate change, should you have children? And Gavin Evans considers the ugly return of racism into science and academia. ]]>Sun, 1 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000Democracy in the digital erahttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/96
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/96New Internationalist magazine‘We are living in transformative times’
As chair of the International Modern Media Institute, I want to say how pleased we are to partner with the New Internationalist on the Big Story this month to focus on the challenges and opportunities facing democracy in the digital era.
We are living in transformative times and there are amazing citizens’ initiatives occurring all over the world as people are waking up to the idea that they not only can but need to co-create their societies.
The good news is that it has never been easier to do, thanks to new developments in digital technology and the way we now use it to engage and interact. I have one task for you, for us: let’s dream together of how we want the future to be. Some of my favourite tools for achieving that task are to be found in this magazine, along with articles from expert journalists and activists commissioned by IMMI Director Guðjón Idir.
Elsewhere in this month’s New Internationalist you will find stories ignored by the mainstream press in the Unreported Year and the relationship between Augusto Pinochet and Chile’s indie music revival.
Cover illustration by Molly Crabapple.]]>Thu, 1 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000NGOs - Do they help?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/95
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/95New Internationalist magazine‘You won’t forget all the good work, will you?’
It’s a nightmare when articles get double-parked. Let me explain.
When Ruby Diamonde’s Letter from Bangui came in for this month’s edition, it spoke movingly of a forest haven for animals in a country sadly better known these days for human strife.
If Ruby had caught a glimpse of Eden, Sophie Pritchard’s piece on the excesses of some conservation NGOs offered up hell. The same nature reserve, with the same NGO partner (WWF), but across the border in neighbouring Cameroon, was a site of evictions and human rights abuses. What to make of it?
Not much except to accept that the reality in Central African Republic may be somewhat different from that in Cameroon.
At another point in the preparation of this magazine, a colleague asked: ‘You won’t forget all the good work NGOs do too, now, will you?’ I don’t think that was ever in doubt – it figures in some form in almost every edition of New Internationalist.
But with NGOs numbering in the millions globally and the largest ones with budgets that match transnational corporations, it is also worth inspecting the charge-sheet against them. NGOs inspire public trust; we express solidarity by giving to them. Even their most trenchant critics are quick to add, ‘I don’t mean all NGOs...’ Maybe this edition will help you decide how to find ones you can support.
A further provocation this month comes from Jeremy Seabrook’s searching essay on the roots of radicalization. It’s an analysis that’s largely missing among the friction the subject generates.
And Roxana Olivera’s piece from Peru takes us back to the forest, where heroic defenders of nature and the public interest have put their lives on the line.]]>Mon, 1 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000Big oil RIP?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/93
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/93New Internationalist magazineStopping Big Oil in its tracks
Did you go on one of the climate marches in September? As a confirmed march-sceptic, I approached the London event with caution. I’ve long seen marches as one of the least impactful tools in the activist’s toolbox: they are so easily dismissed and ignored, by politicians, the media and non-marchers alike. But this one felt different.
I was in the midst of pulling together this issue, exploring how we bring about the end of the oil age. So it was thrilling to watch from across the pond as the record-breaking 400,000-strong New York march was led through the streets of Manhattan by people at the forefront of the struggle to keep the oil in the ground. First Nations from the tar sands ‘sacrifice zone’ in Canada marched with representatives of Native communities fighting pipelines and Indigenous Amazon villagers threatened by drilling. Young people of colour living next to health-destroying oil refineries marched with Gulf Coast residents devastated by Hurricane Katrina and the BP Deepwater Horizon spill.
The march gave us a glimpse of the movement that could – indeed, must – end the oil age. It’s diverse, enormous, multi-pronged, and led by those who, forced to live daily with the devastation caused by fossil fuels, are genuinely starting to stop Big Oil in its tracks.
Elsewhere in the magazine, the significance of the People’s Climate March is explored in more depth by Mark Engler, and Naomi Klein talks about her brilliant new book on how climate change gives us a shot at a more equal, democratic world.
In the face of multiple ecological crises, hope seems to be rising again. I encourage you to get involved.]]>Sat, 1 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000Cubahttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/92
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/92New Internationalist magazine‘Julius Caesar from Havana sends his love’
Sunday morning in a provincial town in Cuba. We’d been chatting in a park for a good half-hour – and had migrated to a nearby open-terraced bar.
‘You know,’ the man said, ‘if this had been a few years ago, we’d have been interrupted by now by police asking to see my ID and wanting to know why I was talking to a foreigner.’
I’d noticed the difference. Compared with 10 years ago, people seemed more open, more relaxed. Less cautious and reticent.
There were complaints aplenty still, but they were more detailed and nuanced than before. Many had to do with the profound economic and social changes that the communist country is going through – the topic of this month’s Big Story.
Some things, like old Cold War allegiances, seemed to have stayed the same. One woman told me her heart went out to ‘that poor Assad’ who was trying so hard to ‘save Syria’, and she thanked heavens for Putin’s actions to ‘protect’ Ukraine.
Others confounded me in different ways. Like the taxi driver, who, after a long and cogent analysis of why Cuba was not ‘socialist enough’, had offered as a parting shot: ‘Say hallo to Elizabeth for me.’
‘Elizabeth?’
‘Yes. Your queen. She’s a great lady, very dignified. Tell her Julius Caesar from Havana sends his love.’
This edition of the magazine also sees writers and activists Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein debating whether the academic boycott of Israel is justified – a poignant question given recent events in Gaza. While our Worldbeater takes a swipe at Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, described as ‘a military strongman with an electoral fig leaf and a big ego’. Now there’s an image to conjure with.]]>Wed, 1 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000Gold troublehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/91
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/91New Internationalist magazineBling is not in
Call me old school but I’ve never liked the new and the shiny.
Not for me glitz and bling, whether it’s jewellery or luminous leather. The whole world of bright surfaces feels superficial and deluding.
So I guess I was a natural to be editor of an issue on the price we pay for our obsession with gold.
Don’t get me wrong: people should be free to like what they like. But in these days of ecological crisis the consequences of extraction and end use of everything we consume needs to become part of the equation. This issue raises questions at both the production and consumption stage of gold.
Since almost the dawn of Homo sapiens’ history we have been drawn to the yellow metal. As a sign I once saw in downtown Manhattan proudly proclaimed, ‘Enough is never enough’. But if it’s in the DNA of some to rush about on lucrative treasure hunts, why not search for something more benign and sustainable like wild mushrooms or berries? Both are tasty and will grow back – and you can make a tidy sum out of selling mushrooms. The search for and the hoarding of gold is just too destructive of the environment and disruptive of convivial human society. Which is why this edition makes the case for ending the gold rush entirely.
The struggle to preserve the sanctity of the environment is highlighted in our story from New Zealand/Aotearoa on the granting of legal status to a river. Meanwhile, the not so charitable side of Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity order in India is questioned in a first-hand account.]]>Mon, 1 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000Feminism fights backhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/90
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/90New Internationalist magazine‘So, pink or blue?’
The sonographer was prodding my belly.
He grabbed a different ultrasound. ‘She’s using the wrong one,’ he said irritably of his colleague, standing next to him – who presumably had a name, and one that he knew.
Apparently the link to feminine pink or boyish blue – and associated life choices – starts in the womb, already established while my foetus was still gulping down amniotic fluid in preparation for breathing.
‘If you mean boy or girl,’ I said, with as much stiff dignity as I could muster, on my back, smeared in cold gel, with the sonographer’s hand resting casually on my crotch, ‘then yes, I would like to know.’ After more prodding, her sex was revealed: it was a girl!
Growing a girl, while I work on this feminism edition, brought the issues into sharper focus. It’s the world I have experienced as a woman in my lifetime and it’s the one that awaits her too. I wonder, how will she navigate the vagaries of consent? Persistent inequality?
But while concerned about what she’ll be up against, I have also been impressed by the fantastic women whose work is likely to make the world that bit more equal by the time she starts to make her way in it.
We were lucky to be able to draw on the expertise and experience of all-round internationalist feminist, the writer Hannah Pool, who has acted as Contributing Editor for this edition.
Women are celebrated throughout this magazine – Mixed Media reviews solely female authors and filmmakers, and this month we’ve elected to highlight Yemeni political activist Tawakkol Karman in Agenda. We are also excited to welcome comedian Kate Smurthwaite, who has a beef with cupcakes.
Elsewhere in the issue we check back in with developments in Haiti and analyse the propaganda war in Ukraine.]]>Tue, 1 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000The politics of language losshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/89
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/89New Internationalist magazineSave our speech!
‘I think they might be backward.’
This was the damning verdict of the health visitor on discovering that my twin sister and I, aged two, were resolutely refusing to speak a proper language (ie English), and were instead babbling away in some incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. My mother knew better. Like endless sets of twins around the world, we had simply come up with our own language, in which we were perfectly fluent and happy, thank you very much. The rest of the family managed to decipher enough to know what we wanted – and given that that was the extent of our two-year-old world, why bother with anything else? When we went to school, we were put into separate classes and inevitably picked up the far inferior language our peers were speaking. And our own twin-speak soon died out.
This, in a microcosm, is what is happening to the vast majority of the 7,000 languages currently spoken around the world, which struggle against political and cultural assimilation, fall out of favour or are beaten into obscurity. Many linguists believe their fate is sealed, and that within two centuries, we’ll all be speaking the same language. But all is not yet lost – as our Big Story this month reveals.
Also in this issue, we highlight a theatre making waves in Afghanistan by encouraging people to act out their trauma. And Lydia James investigates the shocking – and growing – phenomenon of food waste, and offers some ingenious ways to stop our leftovers ending up in landfill.]]>Sun, 1 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000Organ traffickinghttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/88
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/88New Internationalist magazineFollow the bodies
In the early days of the Organs Watch project, when I was first looking into the rumours of ‘body snatching’ and ‘organ stealing’ among shantytown dwellers in northeast Brazil, my husband, then a clinical social worker at a large US paediatric hospital, returned home one evening elated and deeply moved. He had witnessed a paediatric transplant that had saved the life of a mortally ill youngster.
Michael was almost beside himself in sharing the miraculous event. Distracted, I looked up from my writing desk and replied: ‘Really! Whose organ?’ My husband’s anger at my ‘heartless’ question, something only an oddball anthropologist would even think to ask, made me realize that, to the contrary, it was a question that had to be asked.
My naïve question and my equally naïve method – ‘follow the bodies!’ – brought me to police morgues, hospital mortuaries, medical-legal institutes, intensive care units, dialysis units, blood labs and organ banks all over the world. I traced the missing link – the ‘blood diamond’ of the organ trafficking world – the fresh kidneys, which came across borders safely packaged in their warm, living containers. I met the ‘kidney mules’, recruited by brokers in slums, refugee camps and mental institutions, and the outlaw surgeons and traffickers behind the illegal flow of human traffic. This edition of New Internationalist reveals the damage wreaked by the criminal organ trade, and looks at what it might take to combat it.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Amy Hall meets the activists suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and the Argument on banning religious methods of slaughter goes behind the clamour of the proposed Danish ban.]]>Thu, 1 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000The war on whistleblowershttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/87
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/87New Internationalist magazineSpilling the beans
When I was growing up there was one thing you did not do: tell tales.
I suspect the reasoning behind it was that adults didn’t want to become embroiled in children’s squabbles.
Times have changed – and brought a greater realization of the harm done by putting secrecy (and often loyalty) above addressing wrongdoing. The recent coming to light of sex-abuse cases, going back decades, has made this explicit.
So common is the term ‘whistleblower’ today that it’s easy to forget its relative newness. It only became a household term in the 1970s, popularized by US activist Ralph Nader. Whistleblowing tends to come in waves – and it’s fair to say we are witnessing a tidal one right now. Necessary it most certainly is, as revelations show the extent to which we – the public – are being infantilized by the states that rule us and their so-called security apparatus.
All is not lost, though, as the courage of whistleblowers testifies. One of the contributors to this month’s Big Story, David Morgan, drew my attention to this poem by Emily Dickinson: We never know how high we are/Till we are asked to rise/And then if we are true to plan/Our statures touch the skies.
As usual, she says it best, with fewest words.
Also in this month’s issue, Tim Gee travels to Yasuní in Ecuador to see how local people and environmentalists are still determined to resist oil interests intent on drilling into the heart of one of the world’s most ecologically valuable troves of natural biodiversity.
And finally, Louise Gray catches up with Angélique Kidjo, the dynamic and fearless musician from Benin who makes archbishops dance and speaks truth to tyrants.]]>Tue, 1 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000Commodities - the pitfalls of resource wealthhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/86
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/86New Internationalist magazineCycles of history, chains of dependency
Who’s heard of Harold Adams Innis? Put up your hand! Not many, I see. Well, no surprise there. The Canadian academic died in 1952 and his most influential work (on the fur trade and the cod fishery, two prosaic strands of his country’s economic history) was published in the 1920s and 1930s. Eventually, this research became the core of his ‘staples theory’, an analysis of how reliance on raw material exports can shape a country’s economy and its culture.
Dry stuff, I admit. But Innis’s relevance has not faded. Today it just has a different name. The phrase used is ‘resource curse’ and it’s a major source of political conflict, environmental destruction and social dysfunction. In this issue, we try to figure out what it means for those countries and communities caught in the ‘staples trap’.
Elsewhere in the magazine photojournalist Isabella Moore travels to Russia, one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel producers, where she talks to that country’s gay citizens about the fear of living in an increasingly repressive state.
Repression, of course, takes many forms in an era of economic austerity and globe-straddling digital surveillance. (Thank you, Edward Snowden.) What’s a self-respecting government to do without the latest in anti-riot gear and non-lethal ‘crowd control’ solutions? Anna Feigenbaum expounds on the profits to be made in policing dissent.
To paraphrase Aldous Huxley: we don’t learn very much from the lessons of history and that may be the most important lesson of all. Ah, brave new world.]]>Sat, 1 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000Why are we locking up migrants?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/84
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/84New Internationalist magazineAt the time of writing, Amnesty International was taking Britain to task for refusing to resettle any of Syria’s 2.3 million refugees. This government responded curtly that the application of any Syrian asylum-seeker who pitched up in Britain – around 1,300 people last year – would be considered on its merits.
But of the few Syrians who do make it, not all find sanctuary.
Some are imprisoned en route, such as the family pictured on the front cover who wound up in a Bulgarian detention centre.
Another Syrian attempting to join his brother in Britain found himself detained under immigration powers in Oxfordshire. Two months (and two bail refusals) later, he had lost contact with his wife and seven children back home and was desperate to get out. Before I got the chance to speak to him, the Home Office had obliged, deporting him to Hungary, his entry-point to Europe, where he had been badly beaten.
He was just the first of many would-be interviewees to disappear. At times, it felt like chasing ghosts. Detention is a hidden, parallel world where journalists are forbidden and rights evaporate. Access is highly restricted; migrants who speak out risk reprisals. Consequently, precious few of the many thousands locked up and later released were happy to ‘play with the lion’s tail’, as one Iranian put it.
Out of public view, the most extraordinary abuses can happen. Take Peter Qasim. He spent seven years locked up after Australian authorities ‘forgot’ about him. ‘Feeling forgotten’ plagues detainees, according to one regular detention centre visitor. This magazine is our attempt to remedy this, by exposing what is happening, not in Burma or Eritrea but in Western liberal democracies – no more so than in New Internationalist’s main subscriber countries.
Elsewhere, we have a visual treat in the form of The Unreported Year, and an exclusive interview with theorist of the moment, David Graeber.]]>Wed, 1 Jan 2014 18:45:00 +0000Fracking - the gathering stormhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/82
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/82New Internationalist magazineAh December! Month when citizens of the Western world can feel under an absolute, sometimes despairing, obligation to ‘be festive’. And what do we offer our readers? Why, an edition on fracking, of course.
The subject of the December mag makes a brief appearance in editorial considerations as the end of the year looms into sight. Proposed topics are met with groans of ‘That’s really going to cheer them up!’ In the end, we just go with what we think is important, December or not.
In our lowdown on fracking, a controversial form of fossil fuel extraction, there are some glimmers of hope. Chief among them being the sheer number of campaigns against the practice wherever it is proposed. Where fracking is concerned, it seems that despite the disinformation peddled by the oil and gas industry and mouthpiece politicians, large numbers of people are quite capable of making up their own minds.
We had festivities of a different sort on 31 October, Halloween. We celebrated 40 years on the media landscape with a glittering panel of activists and thinkers who debated ‘What it means to be an internationalist today’ with an engaged and lively audience. Watch it at: nin.tl/174ezUq
At times like these particularly I am reminded of our larger audience – you, our readers. Thank you for believing in us through the years and supporting us with your subscriptions. Thank you to those of you who have taken the further step of becoming a Friend of New Internationalist. We couldn’t do what we do without you.
This month our Worldbeater column features Mr European Austerity, also known as Olli Rehn. He may not have a high media profile himself but the campaign of cuts over which he has presided is front page news on an almost daily basis.
With the intractability of the Syrian conflict in mind, disillusion with the UN’s inability to find some way out is tempting. Our Argument on whether it is time to junk the UN Security Council gives pause for thought.]]>Sun, 1 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000Time to rethink disabilityhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/79
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/79New Internationalist magazineWhat about success?
One of the challenges of editing a ‘Disability Issue’ is that my mobility is not something I think about much. You might start to worry about my state-of-mind if I were to look in the mirror every morning, and say ‘Ah, yes, I still have two hands, feet and dark brown eyes.’ And just as I was born with them, I was ‘born like this’, which is not a very politically correct (or even accurate) way to describe my quadriplegic cerebral palsy. But while I don’t define myself by my ‘level of mobility’, the struggle disabled people face in their day-to-day lives both inspires and motivates me. Not least because it is one I face myself.
But I was also tired of hearing about ‘obstacles’ for disabled people. So in this magazine you’ll hear from Anoop Kumar, a disabled citizen journalist, who interviews a visually-impaired science whiz who is breaking the mould in India. Then, from Britain, Francesca Martinez recounts how she shook the idea she was ‘faulty’ and found fame as a comedian. On a more serious note, Maysoon Zayid returns to Palestine to assist a new generation of disabled children born under occupation, and Luke Dale-Harris uncovers human rights abuses against disabled people that continue to tarnish Romania’s reputation.
Since writing my personal account for this issue, I’ve started catching the bus again, and playing football; albeit one-a-side, and in the lounge of my flat. Both activities make me realize how much has changed since my childhood. And yet, just over a year since the Paralympics came to London with much fanfare, I think we have some way to go before the achievements of disabled people from all walks of life are encouraged and celebrated.
Elsewhere in this edition we interview John Pilger about his latest film Utopia on the resistance of indigenous Australians, and expose the domestic slavery that can await South Asian brides under the smokescreen of arranged marriage in Britain.]]>Fri, 1 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000Where have all the girls gone?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/78
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/78New Internationalist magazine117 million females are missing
Misogyny doesn’t get much more basic than this: taking steps to make sure that females are not born.
I’d heard about the ‘missing millions’ but had not fully appreciated the sheer scale of pro-male sex selection or the collective and individual harm it is doing.
Personal stories – like the one told by Kajri in ‘Keeping Prerna’– bring the nightmare home. But Kajri’s gutsy determination to defy her husband, keep her daughter and fight to give her a decent life, also delivers hope.
That particular story came to us via Radar (onourradar.org) an organization that trains people from excluded or isolated communities to become ‘citizen journalists’.
The democratic potential of such an initiative is tremendous. In Kenya and Sierra Leone, for example, Radar trained hundreds of people to ‘live’ report their own general elections and the organization is planning to do the same for India in 2014. Using mobile phones, citizen journalists will quickly expose any irregularities or misdoings, even in the most remote regions and among the least privileged communities.
This month we also have a special feature on Syria. As the country descends deeper into chaos, we focus not on the foreigners busy fuelling this proxy war but those who are trying to help the country’s beleaguered citizens. Photojournalist David Brunetti captures the scene as the Jordanian authorities assist Syrian refugees to safety as they cross the border at night. Nigel Wilson catches up with Maha Alasil, an ordinary woman dedicated to helping the refugees rebuild their lives.
Finally, to celebrate New Internationalist’s 40th anniversary year, we are hosting an event in London on 31 October. We’ll be talking about ‘what internationalism means today’ with a panel of leading thinkers from the field of development and social change. You can find out more at newint.org/about/events, and join us in person and/or on Twitter #newint40.]]>Tue, 1 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000How the war on pirates became big businesshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/77
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/77New Internationalist magazine‘The arrgther side of the story’
While I was working on this issue of the magazine, I lost count of the number of people who asked if I’d heard the story about the Women’s Institute’s (WI) piracy gaff. Some members of this august British institution had dressed up in eye patches and sashes for one of their organized events, a talk from a sea captain, only to discover that he had suffered a traumatic hostage ordeal at the hands of Somali pirates.
This throwaway tale had gone viral. Sure, it had a bit of dramatic irony and quaintness about it – showing up the British weakness for dressing up, for example – but its success was as much a reflection of the public’s voracious appetite for any story to do with pirates.
Pirates’ sinister glamour transfixes beyond the WI. The world will celebrate ‘Talk like a pirate day’ on 19 September; I once ‘hijacked’ New York’s free ferry to Staten Island, with a load of anarchists and bottles of rum, on an excuse so spurious that it now escapes me.
Yet piracy is really no more than robbery at sea. The enduring appeal lies in the asymmetry of this transgressive, violent enterprise and a human fondness for adventuring. The same opportunist spirit can be found in those profiting from piracy’s many spin-off industries. They range from ‘fake’ pirates catering for the Western media’s craving for Somali piracy stories to the sea-borne, private-security protection boom. In fact, the roots of piracy and the fight against it ended up being a more interesting story than that of the pirates themselves.
By way of respite from men-with-guns, we are also running an interview with a courageous woman – Fawzia Koofi, the Afghan MP bidding for presidency. Finally, we would like to flag up a conference exploring ‘co-operative alternatives to capitalism’, where we will be launching our latest book People over capital, in London on 27 September. Visit newint.org/books for more details.]]>Sun, 1 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000Debt - a global scamhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/73
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/73New Internationalist magazineAnother day older and deeper in debt
I know it makes some people tremendously uncomfortable, but I can’t say it has bothered me much. Often, contrarily, it makes me feel appreciated, gives me a warm glow.
I’m talking about being socially indebted, being on the receiving end of acts of kindness from friends or strangers. Funnily enough, the overriding feelings I get are of being valued and connected, rather than any immediate obligation to repay. I believe these things even out in the end anyway and if it costs me little to help, then I certainly don’t keep score! The reward of helping out is in the doing.
My feelings about my mortgage debt are, sadly, entirely different – not only will the wretched thing haunt me until I am old and grey, it has turned me old and grey already. Such contractual, monetized debts are of a different order, of course; there is no trace of the social about them. And they can hang heavy indeed, especially when one feels tricked or forced into having taken on something unmanageable.
Fifteen years ago, a New Internationalist edition on debt would have been almost entirely on ‘Third World’ debt. Today, debt of all kinds is much more global, but it can be just as extractive and unjust. That still needs to change.
We also carry a report this month on the plight of the Kashmiri Pandit minority, many of whom were driven from their homes when the conflict in the region first began to escalate. In India, rightwingers exploit their example to spout anti-Muslim hatred, while progressive media often remain uneasily silent.
A warm welcome to Eduardo Galeano, the treasured Uruguayan author, whose books have permanent residence in our library. He answers our questions with his usual wit and concision – and, I for one, will greedily devour his views, even on football.]]>Mon, 1 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000Argentina's challengehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/57
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/57New Internationalist magazineAre there lessons to be learned from Argentina?
It’s a journalist’s nightmare.
You’ve just spent weeks taking notes, recording interviews, shooting photos, gathering material for a series of articles.
And then you lose it.
As two muggers were trying to tear my bag – with most of the contents of this month’s main theme – from my back, that nightmare seemed to be coming true.
It happened a few hours after I’d arrived in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, across the River Plate from Buenos Aires. My attackers’ technique was rough, but as poor as my bag was tough. My body less so – as several fractures and a punctured lung were to testify.
But the content of this month’s special report on neighbouring Argentina remained resolutely intact and on my back.
Argentina has been in the news a fair bit recently – for its battle with financial speculators, politely described as ‘holdouts’, more graphically as ‘vulture funds’. And for its loud pot- and pan-banging protests, of which there have been many recently. Often the country is presented in the international media as a source of trouble. But, as this issue of the magazine shows, it should be seen as a source of solutions.
Which can hardly be said for Indonesia when it comes to responding to the world’s demand for cheap vegetable oil. It’s not just the orang-utans that have issues with the creation of massive palm oil plantations – as Ollie Milman’s feature on the subject explains. It’s a question of human rights too.
On a more positive note, Veronique Mistiaen meets the Iraqi environmentalist who is credited with having ‘breathed life into the Garden of Eden’. Curious? Read on.]]>Sat, 1 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000Land grabshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/48
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/48New Internationalist magazine‘We don’t like to turn people away’
When I landed in Mozambique’s gleaming Chinese-built airport in Maputo, a large group of South Asian men from my plane were doing their level best to appear calm. As we went through immigration, officials steered them to one side when it transpired they didn’t have visas.
They had fallen foul of immigration rules that had changed just one day earlier, sending me scrambling to get a visa in time. Now most foreign visitors had to secure a visa before arrival. The rule-change was partly targeting people like my fellow travellers, but also Westerners – we’re not so used to that – after some job-seeking Portuguese got sent home in January.
Refusing entry to citizens of a former colonizing nation is a novel place to be for the Mozambican state. ‘We don’t like to turn people away,’ commented a woman from the forests department, whom I had got talking to on the plane. She was watching the anxious group of South Asian men with some sympathy. ‘They are only looking for work. But it was all getting too hard to handle at the airport.’
It’s a testament to the upswing in Mozambique’s economic fortunes that even Europeans are heading here in search of work and opportunity. But with this new interest come huge challenges. Private capital can move freely across borders, unlike the worker hopefuls I saw at the airport. The Portuguese hope to supply meat to the expanding cities while Britain is digging up coal and rubies. Players from the global South – Brazil, China and Indian firms like OLAM – also want a piece of Mozambique. The government will need to manage this influx with a firm hand and integrity to have any hope of the investment benefiting its people, without whom none of this ‘emerging Africa’ would have been possible.
Elsewhere in the magazine, a shocking story of how lack of public healthcare leaves people to die on the streets in Ghana – a chilling account as Britain sets about dismantling the NHS. This month’s issue also carries a review of Eduardo Galeano’s poignant and vibrant new book.]]>Wed, 1 May 2013 00:00:00 +0000Demolition jobhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/30
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/30New Internationalist magazineA mark on history
The last time I wrote an editor’s letter, Hugo Chávez had just been re-elected president in Venezuela. This time, his death, after weeks of mounting speculation, has been announced.
During the media blackout while he lay in hospital, his opponents exercised their vituperation, his followers offered prayers. According to the country’s Constitution, fresh elections will need to be held within 30 days.
For now, amid fears of public disorder and political succession, it is difficult not to wonder what the mark of his leadership will be on history. The sheer scale of the deployment of the nation’s wealth (mainly oil resources) towards provision for the poorest is impossible to ignore, despite the criticisms of megalomania or even corruption. Will the Bolivarian revolution that he spearheaded, which has brought land reform, free healthcare, education and, more recently, free or affordable housing to millions, now falter, at a time when the world is more ready than ever for a genuine politics of equality?
If Chávez’s claims sometimes seemed grandiose, the venom of his moneyed opponents was usually more unreal. One Venezuelan expatriate I met insisted that everything Chávez claimed to have achieved was lies regardless of proof; wealthy parts of the country should secede; the poor were being misled. The conviction with which this was said reinforced a cliché – money does strange things to people.
In this edition we discuss the amazing Venezuelan project to build three million homes – public housing to shelter the most vulnerable. Its future will depend on Venezuela’s political leadership after Chávez.
Also in this issue, Jeremy Keenan offers an alternative explanation for what happened at the Tiguentourine gas plant in Algeria in January – with Algeria’s secret service heavily implicated in both the kidnappings and the bloodbath that followed. And film director Ken Loach talks to us about his political passions and inspirations.
Next month our focus moves from housing to land and the urgent issue of what massive land grabs in the Majority World mean to the people on the ground.]]>Mon, 1 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000What has development done for me?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/26
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/26New Internationalist magazineMy own first encounter with New Internationalist was with an issue on Water in September 1981. It was a revelation to me: having always taken clean water for granted as something that flowed at the twist of a tap, here I was suddenly transported into seeing it as a precious resource that had to be borne in pots from the well or that might carry horrible diseases. From the first, the magazine seemed to me to offer something unique, a window on the real world where the majority, far from chasing the latest consumerist dream, still had to struggle for the basic necessities of life.
More than three decades later, 29 years of which I have spent here as a co-editor, there is still no other popular magazine that sees the world in quite the same way – that offers a platform for the myriad voices of people from Asia, Africa and Latin America, that celebrates their cultures and that argues consistently for global justice. Like all other magazines and newspapers, we are wrestling with a new digital age where the habit of subscribing to a paper magazine is less common and where information is routinely sought from the web. So we’re delighted to launch our new online subscriptions app digital.newint.com.au which works brilliantly on any device with a web browser. It incorporates a feature for which we’ve had many requests – easy sharing of favourite articles.
For this special 40th anniversary issue, we invited the magazine’s founding editor, Peter Adamson, to write the keynote article, which looks back at his original hopes for the publication – and surveys the progress (or in some respects the lack of it) made by humanity over the four decades since. We have revisited just a few of the key individuals who have featured in our pages over those years. And we showcase a landmark essay by the great German thinker Wolfgang Sachs on why ‘development’ has become an empty shell that should be cast off even by those of us who care most deeply about global justice.
Sad to say, notwithstanding all its technological progress, the world has actually become more rather than less unequal since the first issue of this magazine was unveiled in March 1973. Perhaps the time has finally come for globalization to be replaced by a ‘new internationalism’ that puts the needs of the poor and the planet above the idle interests of the rich. ]]>Fri, 1 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000The feral richhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/14
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/14New Internationalist magazineWe need to talk about the rich
‘Exclusive’, ‘discreet’, ‘private’, ‘bespoke’. The words used to describe goods and services aimed at the rich – who are increasingly the super-rich – speak volumes.
So, we found while putting together this issue, do agency photos of the wealthy. If you type in search terms like ‘poor’ or ‘poverty’ you will see any number of images of people, mainly in the Global South, that will give you a spontaneous, close-up view of their lives. You can see people eating, sleeping, working, playing; on the streets, in the fields, inside their homes.
A search for ‘rich’ or ‘wealthy’ is more likely to produce staged public events such as conferences, award ceremonies or gallery openings. Unless ‘snatched’ by despised paparazzi, pictures of wealthy people in their home, work or play environments tend to be rather posed and controlled affairs.
The subjects often come across as distant, removed, insulated from the tawdry world of mundane reality. A surprising number of the more arty studio shots are cropped so that their heads are missing – which is taking detachment a bit far.
Today, the detachment of the rich from the rest of us is more than just a matter of style. In this month’s Big Story we join the dots between runaway riches and the global recession. We turn the spotlight on the actions of a global élite and its impact on millions of people around the world. Which is why our title – The feral rich – pulls no punches.
Other features in this issue may be more heart-warming. ‘Good news from Greece’ sounds like an oxymoron, but Alexandra Saliba’s investigation into what people are doing to support each other through the crisis helps restore faith in humanity. She visited 11 grassroots collectives engaged in activities ranging from developing local fair trade and alternative currencies, to running rebel kitchens and preventing suicide.
Some of the initiatives have received media attention; for others, this is a first.
And, as usual at this time, we present our stunning alternative take on the previous 12 months with our Unreported Year photo special.]]>Tue, 1 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000Internet showdownhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/8
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/8New Internationalist magazineIt struck me as the perfect irony when Google ads about cyber security popped up on my screen as I researched surveillance for this magazine. It was an excellent example of how much we reveal online, and who has access to it.
Now that is not to say that we should all get paranoid, shut down our social network accounts and head for the hills. But seeing as this digital revolution thing is not going away, we need to get our heads around it.
We are living in a time of accelerated innovation. It poses huge challenges – not least to the magazine industry – when digital data, freed of physical substance, can be shared as easily as ideas. It’s a time of great promise – the global democratization of information and knowledge, new ways to network, organize and innovate.
But we don’t know, of course, where these new technologies will lead us. It won’t all be good news. Over the next 20 years, advances in open-design and 3-D printing promise to democratize and localize manufacturing. There will be environmental gains, and it will slash the import bill for Majority World nations – but it may also wipe out millions of jobs.
We also need to be wary of overstating the impact of new technology. Open access to government data, for example, can empower communities but it will not automatically confer power over decision-making, particularly for the 60 per cent in the world without internet access.
This is the case for 97 per cent of people in Mali, the focus of Jeremy Keenan’s exposé on US interference in North Africa. Keenan reveals how the US and other Western countries have been sponsoring terrorism, which is then blamed on Islamic militancy. His shocking report provides important background to a developing news story.
This month’s magazine also has two prominent human rights campaigners, Peter Tatchell and Joyce Arthur, taking opposite views on a thorny issue: should hate speech be a crime?]]>Sat, 1 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000Bad medicinehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/7
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/7New Internationalist magazinePuberty is a strange affair. I spent a large part of mine at the foot of our record player transfixed by a voice.
While working on this edition about healthcare and health inequality and how they are bound up with economic inequality, a verse from a song from that time, ‘All My Trials’, has been on repeat in my head. In Joan Baez’s doleful, piercing soprano, it goes: ‘If living were a thing that money could buy/ Then the rich would live and the poor would die...’
Such well-worn truths when put so simply appear little more than clichés. But inspect the complexities of the debates around the divided health of our divided world, and beneath all the intricacy there’s that bedrock of inequity that still needs breaking up.
My attention has been drawn many times by my British colleagues to what has been happening to the National Health Service (NHS) in their country. A service conceived in the spirit of providing reliable, free-at-the-point-of-delivery care to all is now suffering fragmentation and marketization. There’s even a new political party, the National Health Action party (nationalhealthaction.org.uk), with the impetus coming from healthcare professionals, launching this month to campaign for restoring the original principles of the NHS.
Speaking of party politics, in news that will be old hat by the time you read this, Hugo Chávez has been re-elected president in Venezuela (something that was accurately predicted on our website by Jody McIntyre, guest editor of last month’s edition). The country’s all-out effort to bring healthcare to marginalized communities, with members of those communities being trained up as medics, will continue. Here you will find an article about the country that pioneered this vision of care – Cuba.
In the name of equal opportunities coverage, our Worldbeater this month is about those heroes of the one per cent, the Koch brothers.
And the suspense is killing us about what kind of showing the Booker-shortlisted author Jeet Thayil, who talks robustly about the work of writing in our interview, will make. That decision will happen, annoyingly for us, just as this edition goes to the printers.]]>Thu, 1 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000Youth risinghttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/6
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/6New Internationalist magazineHip-hop artist Logic once rapped: ‘I get down for my people, down for my people, down with the government until we’re all equal!’ When I looked into the eyes of Logic’s first baby daughter, born a few weeks back, it seemed like a long time since we sat down to write those lyrics. It was before the police pulled me out of my wheelchair on a demonstration, when Hosni Mubarak was still chilling, before the London riots.
I struggle to imagine how the world must look through a baby’s eyes. But when I see them smile, I know that however much destruction we cause, the generations that follow will continue to struggle to make things better.This issue celebrates youth movements working to do exactly that. Far from being apathetic, young people are challenging an unjust world and have the idealism and energy to change things.
In this month’s Big Story, Farah Jassat challenges preconceptions, asking why certain schools of feminist thought are ignored by the mainstream media. Laurie Penny stokes up outrage with her lowdown on how youth in the West are shouldering the burden of a broken economic model.
We take a look at the techniques of the uncompromising Chilean student movement and listen to the frustrations of youth activists in occupied Palestine.
The cover image is by Andre Anderson, age 20, whom we found thanks to LIVE magazine (run by 15-24 year olds) in Brixton, London. It was the first-ever publication I wrote for, at the tender age of 15.
Inspired by LIVE’s principles of being written for young people, by young people, this month’s Big Story is written almost wholly by under 25s, with the exception of music makers Akala and Seun Kuti (both 28). The next generation will inherit the planet we reside in. Who better to lead the struggle?
Also this month, Australian journalist Ollie Milman writes of the disgraceful way his country treats child asylum-seekers; and regular contributor Stephanie Boyd visits Guatemala, where indigenous groups are leading the fight against Canada’s Goldcorp goldmining corporation.]]>Mon, 1 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000Illegal drugshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/5
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/5New Internationalist magazineJournalism isn’t a bad profession. It can have its risks, dangers and limitations, depending on what you do and where you do it. But, by and large, it isn’t life-threatening.
Unless, like Sandra Rodríguez, you live just on the Mexican side of the border with the United States.
Sandra works for El Diario, a newspaper in Ciudad Juárez. She investigates crime and corruption in a city torn apart by the ‘war on drugs’. This is a place where journalists are routinely murdered for just doing their job.
The courage and persistence of Sandra and other reporters, who have lost colleagues when death threats turned real, takes your breath away. It shows a commitment to freedom of speech, to talking truth to power, way beyond what most of us will ever be called upon to prove. Writing in this month’s issue of New Internationalist on legalizing drugs, Sandra startlingly evokes what it is like to live and report, day-by-day, in the cauldron of impunity.
And while we are on the subject of journalism, why is it that some conflicts get saturation coverage, while others are ignored? Nick Harvey explores this in an article that delivers some uncomfortable home truths.
Finally, we are pleased to welcome the wonderful North American writer Alice Walker to these pages. She turns a simple Q&amp;A into a kind of poetry that encompasses dust motes, the Dalai Lama, Fidel Castro and the Universe.
PS: Special thanks to Tony Jackson for his help and tireless lobbying on the drugs issue.]]>Sat, 1 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000Co-operativeshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/4
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/4New Internationalist magazineLike a lot of recent graduates, in my early 20s I lived briefly in a co-op house. It was a shaky experiment. The big social and political issues of the day were submerged in the daily grind. Dirty dishes were our downfall.
Since then I’ve passed a major chunk of my life here at New Internationalist, a much more successful co-operative with a long track record. We’ve had our ups and downs but we’ve survived as a ‘worker co-op’ for almost three decades now.
We’re not alone. Globally, co-operatives are thriving, a fact celebrated by this year’s ‘International Year of the Co-operative’. In this time of economic chaos co-operatives may be the only game in town, a human (and humane) alternative to business-as-usual.
Here at New Internationalist being a ‘worker co-op’ means we run the show ourselves. Simple? No, it’s tricky being your own boss – satisfying, yes, but also frustrating. Hard to put the blame on someone else when you’re in charge.
No doubt we come across as a group of earnest do-gooders ceaselessly thrashing out the best ways to save the world. But you’d be surprised at how little time we actually spend talking about the ‘big issues’.
These days a lot of our time (meetings, meetings, meetings) is spent managing the business, figuring out how to survive in tough economic times. But we’re also not above having long, intense discussions about life-altering decisions – like what colour to paint the doors.
This issue also looks at another kind of work fraught with contradictions: voluntourism. When our kids take off to spend a gap year in Malawi or Mongolia, are they just paying patrons like any other tourist?
In addition, Tam Hussein, a writer with deep roots in the Middle East, looks beyond the daily bloodshed in Syria to probe the long-simmering tensions between contending ethnic factions in that country. ]]>Sun, 1 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000Protection rackethttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/2
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/2New Internationalist magazineThe United Nations says the global earth summit it is holding in Rio this month ‘is a chance to move away from business as usual and to act to end poverty, address environmental destruction and build a bridge to the future’.
Splendid aims. However, a great many of those involved in shaping the outcome are from the fossil-fuel, mining, banking and carbon-trading sectors.
So we reckon a reality check is in order. This month’s issue gives you the ‘unofficial guide’ to Rio+20, as the summit is called. Writer and activist Danny Chivers also removes the fig-leaves from a selection of corporate miscreants in his exposé of ‘Eight Great Greenwashers’. Some on the list are household names; others may be new to you.
Also this month, Richard Swift answers the tricky question of why the political Right gained and the Left lost ground in the wake of the financial crisis. This essay won him the prestigious US Daniel Singer Millennium Prize. Time will tell if the tide can really be turned, in Europe at any rate, following the French and Greek elections.
Elsewhere, intrepid filmmaker Nadia El Fani explains why she had to leave her native Tunisia. Outspoken US scholar Norman Finkelstein posits that Jewish Americans are falling out of love with Israel – and discusses what that could mean for peace in the Middle East. Charismatic Indian activist Bunker Roy talks about ‘granny power’, and British comedian Jeremy Hardy reflects on being a Marxist at the tender age of 10.]]>Fri, 1 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000Mental healthhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/1
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/1New Internationalist magazineAs an undergraduate, I took psychology for two years. People who study the subject tend to be drawn to it because they are seeking to solve puzzles in their own mental makeup. I was no exception.
But I was also seeking another connection and answers to the question: what is my place in the world? That led to an informal dalliance with philosophy as well.
I didn’t know it then, but the answers aren’t readymade, and I am still working them out.
An answer I find particularly important is: in order to find my place in the world, I need to be of it. However much I love solitude, disconnection is a dead end.
This has been painfully brought home on the many occasions I have had to visit locked psychiatric wards. Whatever their faults – tedium seems more common now than the horrors recounted by survivors just a couple of decades ago – they can be places where some people in extreme mental distress find the time and space to make peace with themselves. Society at large seldom offers such a space.
The challenge of mental ill health is often seen only as an individual challenge; the social challenge to build inclusive, supportive communities is barely considered, perhaps because it appears too great a task. Or perhaps because it is too much like common sense.
Since this edition was announced last month, readers have been writing in, wishing to contribute on this theme. Sadly, we were fully commissioned by then, but as ever we want to know what you think. So do email or write to us.]]>Tue, 1 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000Adapt or diehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/3
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/3New Internationalist magazineLurching through the streets of Dhaka on a narrow rickshaw seat, I thought I would be catapulted out at any time.
Then I peered through the dust around me. I saw all sorts of precious cargo balanced on passengers’ knees: sleeping infants, panes of glass, towers of egg boxes.
The driver understood his environment well, I realized, and could navigate the many hazards on the roads.
A nail-biting journey by rickshaw struck me as an analogy for how Bangladesh is navigating the impacts of climate change: with grit, ingenuity, limited technology and no safety net.
I chose not to run photos of natural disasters and floods in this issue. Devastation is already well documented on rolling 24 hour news channels, but we hear less about Bangladeshis’ resilience in the face of encroaching seas and erratic rains.
I also met those people for whom the only adaptation option was migration. This brought with it the danger of cross country border-crossings or the misery of destitution in bursting cities.
Adaptation to climate change charts a path between ecology, climate science and competing models of development. The latter is the subject of both our Argument and special feature this month.
Our debaters consider whether aid should be cut to countries with poor human rights records, while Andrew Bowman considers some of the downsides to Bill Gates’ brand of ‘venture philanthropy’.
Worldbeater returns this issue, taking aim at Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang: ‘ruthless kleptocrat and good family man’.]]>Sun, 1 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000Time for a fair economyhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/10
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/10New Internationalist magazine‘You know what would be really useful,’ said Jamie Kelsey-Fry, a London teacher and contributing editor to New Internationalist. ‘A guide or “roadmap” for the kind of economy we want.’
Jamie had been at the Occupy London camp pretty much every day since protesters took up residence outside St Paul’s Cathedral in the heart of the capital’s financial district in mid-October 2011.
His request for a roadmap seemed like a big ask at a time when leading politicians and their bevvy of economic advisers were plainly clueless and floundering at the helm.
But then New Internationalist has never shied away from such bold – or foolish? – attempts. We have always thought that the media convention of reporting the ills of the world but rarely coming up with ideas for resolving them, is simply not good enough.
And actually, when we started outlining the Roadmap that features as part of our main theme this month we found that, apart from our own ideas, there was a wealth of creative thinking and very practical proposals being formulated by progressive individuals, groups and networks.
It’s a reminder of how easy it is to slip into believing that ‘there is no alternative’ if you rely on the mainstream media for too much of your information.
This month, we also welcome Josie Long, a rising star of the alternative comedy circuit in Britain, who writes her first column for us on the topic of political awakening. There’s no getting away from it. Alternative ways of seeing things aren’t that hard to find at all.]]>Thu, 1 Mar 2012 03:13:00 +0000Haiti two years onhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/11
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/11New Internationalist magazineOne of my more pleasurable monthly duties is to choose a cartoon for our Open Window feature. This involves sampling work from cartoonists all over the world who contribute to the website cartoonmovement.org When our friends at Cartoon Movement told us about their project to produce a series of comic books marking the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti, we leapt at the chance to feature some of the material in this issue, not least because it is both written and drawn by Haitians in Port-au-Prince – Jean Pharès Jérôme and Chevelin Pierre.
The cartoon work also, however, provided us with the opportunity to explore Haiti’s current plight in more detail and to lay out some of the historical context – with notable contributions from Phillip Wearne and Eduardo Galeano.
The cover photo shows nine-year-old twins Renalda and Renane Bernabe in their house in Petionville. Renane lost her leg in the earthquake but is sporting a new prosthetic limb.
The anniversary may well prove to be a rare point when the mainstream media will revisit Haiti (having broadly forgotten about the country since the disaster). At the moment media the world over are finding it difficult to focus on anything else but the economic crisis – particularly that in the Eurozone.
Our Argument section this month takes the opportunity to ask if the European Union as currently constituted is damaging its citizens’ democratic rights.
Elsewhere, we hear from former child soldiers in Colombia who are trying to make their way in normal society – and we see what happens when private security companies are given the responsibility of delivering aid in poor countries.
Meanwhile, among our regular features is a round-up of the best film, music and books of 2011 – and an interview with actor Juliet Stevenson about, amongst other things, her passionate concern for human rights.]]>Sun, 1 Jan 2012 04:44:00 +0000The arms tradehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/12
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/12New Internationalist magazineIt’s not long, as I write this, since we’ve seen EU leaders line up with pursed lips and prim self-righteousness to recommend that Greece further slash its public services in order to get its €130 ($179) billion ‘rescue package’. But while Merkel and Sarkozy have been waving much stick and much less carrot, there are cries from Greek civil society of continuing crimes in this climate of austerity.
They refer to Greece’s unabated military spending, which has been rising during its deepening crisis, and which the great and good do not suggest cutting. What’s a slashed pension when there’s a much more urgent need for guns? Only the cynical would suggest that it’s because Greece spends most of its military budget shopping from US, German and French corporations that everyone’s keeping shtum.
Meanwhile, it transpires that the British government is still demanding back money from Egypt for loans made to ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak which allowed him to buy arms.
It appears that Egypt owes £100 ($160) million to the Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) which blithely lends money in support of arms and fossil fuels. The ECGD claim not to remember what the loans were for. Who keeps track of such trifles? But intrepid activists at the Jubilee Debt Campaign dug up documents to show the arms link.
So, on the one hand the British government parades its support for democracy in Egypt, while the hand hidden behind its back tugs back blood money it gave to a dictator who suppressed democracy for years.
Two continuing scandals that reflect how things pan out at the confluence of arms industry interests with governance.
The Euro debt crisis features this month in our Argument – bailout or default, that’s the question. Also check out our long reportage about a Brazilian mother whose struggle for a decent life has become emblematic of a mass movement. This is everyday heroism, but it remains extraordinary.]]>Thu, 1 Dec 2011 05:29:00 +0000Banking on Hungerhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/27
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/27New Internationalist magazineGrowing up in London, the harvest festival meant delivering dented cans of baked beans to local pensioners. Moving to Oxfordshire to take a job at the New Internationalist brought me the closest I’d ever been to the seasonal cycle of reaping and sowing grains.
In May I biked to work past fields of stiff green wheat, cut through with red streaks of poppies. Over the summer months, the wheat grew a hat of soft green fuzz that shimmied in the wind, before finally turning golden. Then the combine harvesters moved into action, whirring through the night and depositing neat rectangular straw bales at regular intervals.
All the while I was learning how food had been teleported far away from its earthly origins. This month’s main analysis section looks at how banks have alighted on food commodities, turning them intoan asset that can be invested in – like a stock or share. The resulting speculation has disrupted our fragile food system, which fails to feed people at the best of times.
But campaigners are pushing for a clampdown on financial speculators. With the European Commission pushing for a Tobin tax on financial transactions and a Tahrir-style occupation of Wall Street under way, the political winds – for once – are blowing in their favour.
Elsewhere in the magazine, we examine Russia today, 20 years this month since the break-up the Soviet Union.
For the Argument, a humanist and a Catholic debate whether religious schools are good or bad for society. And leading children’s writer Michael Morpugo talks about how the story of the PiedPiper sheds light on the London riots.]]>Tue, 1 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000Nature's defendershttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/28
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/28New Internationalist magazineChallenging consumer culture – the indigenous way
The riots that rocked England this summer continue to produce a bumper harvest of opinion.
In large part, this reveals more about the motivations of the opiners than those of the rioters.
There was one feature of the disturbances that all can agree on – they resulted in an orgy of looting.
Some commentators have pointed out that this might have something to do with the dominant mantra of our times – consume, consume, consume – which turns so easily into loot, loot, loot. (Ask expense-fiddling members of parliament or bribe-taking police how easy.)
Many of the rioters were poor. That cannot be said of the multinational corporations rampaging across the world, looting the natural resources of others – albeit at the invitation of colluding governments.
If that seems a bit extreme, I invite you to read the main Analysis section of this issue, Nature’s defenders. We go to Peru to tell the story of how indigenous people are taking a stand against the pillage of their lands. In doing so, they are opposing corporations that are making eye-watering profits by stimulating and stuffing the maw of global consumerism, while trashing local livelihoods and global ecosystems.
Also in this issue, we get a close-up view of Syria’s protest movements and where they might lead, thanks to undercover journalist Daniel Wiggins (not his real name). Our Argument is about whether or not there should be a maximum wage. On the Arts pages we review an innovative thriller that enables you to take part in unravelling the mystery online. And we ask Faithless guitarist David Randall what really fires him up.]]>Sat, 1 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000Pakistan - daring to hopehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/29
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/29New Internationalist magazineA brighter future for Pakistan?
While in Pakistan earlier this year, I visited an art exhibition at the Indus School of Art and Architecture in Karachi. It was called ‘And Nothing But the Truth’. It was so well attended that I could hardly get in the gallery; and once inside, it was difficult not to marvel at the quality of art on display. The exhibition explored rumours, risks, negotiation and political complacency. It illustrated not just what Pakistanis are thinking but also what they cannot put into words.
There is a great deal of despair and despondency in Pakistan. But there is also hope. It is provided by all the young people I met at the exhibition and on buses and restaurants in the country. For them Pakistan is not a failed state, but a young country – both in terms of demography and chronology – struggling to shape a viable future. It is a country where art and culture are flourishing. Civil society is alive and fighting. The highly independent media is fearless in the face of fatal danger. We should not underestimate the buoyancy of its people.
We’re also delighted this month to feature an interview with Arundhati Roy, who talks cogently about the state of democracy in her country (India) and elsewhere. And regular columnist Mark Engler reflects on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and argues that the ‘war on terror’ should never have happened.]]>Thu, 1 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000The changing face of masculinityhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/31
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/31New Internationalist magazineObsessed with women's rights?
‘Why are you so obsessed with women’s rights?’ my son George used to moan as I had another rant about rising rates of domestic violence or lack of equal pay. He paid me back as a teenager by putting a poster of naked women on his wall, knowing that it would provoke me. But his question masked a feeling that somehow I was not interested in stories of boys being treated badly, or men who were suffering, and he felt this keenly because he too was a boy.
Since then we have had many discussions and I think he understands much more why I feel women’s rights are so important. But he had a point. So recently I have been taking his advice and looking at this from a different perspective – a male one.
I have been talking to men from different countries about what it means to be a man and how this is changing. Men who want change, not only to ensure that we live in a more equal world, but because inequality damages both sexes. I also talked to women who were suspicious of the growing trend of ‘men for gender equality’. After all, they say, women are still abused, raped and discriminated against. Too right. Squaring this circle is never going to be easy. Which is why I wanted to explore the issue here.
There are other fascinating debates in this magazine, too – for example, the argument between Laurie Pycroft and Helen Marston about whether animal testing is needed to advance medical research. Danny Chivers writes about how big companies are moving in on biofuels, contributing to the global spike in food prices and depriving the Majority World of much-needed land. And Adam Beach, Canadian First Nations actor, talks about his new film Cowboys and Aliens.]]>Fri, 1 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000The far right gets respectablehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/32
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/32New Internationalist magazineTime to retoxify the far right
Nearly 20 years ago, I moved to Vienna. The city, on the fringes of ‘Western Europe’, had suddenly found itself dealing with an influx of refugees from the civil war raging in nearby Yugoslavia. On my arrival in the Austrian capital, I had to go to the local police station to register. I – a white, English, 20 year old on a work visa – was graciously led by the police officer past queues of tired and confused asylum seekers. What shocked me even more was the swastikas daubed on Vienna’s walls, and the fact that Austrians would come up to me – a foreigner – in the street and moan about the Yugoslavs and how they were taking the locals’ jobs.
Fast forward two decades, and, as K Biswas and Rowenna Davis report in this issue, the situation has worsened. What was once the domain of the far reaches of rightwing politics – racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and the obsessive fear and hatred of ‘the other’ – has edged into the mainstream, almost under our noses. By taking advantage of the current economic climate and people’s genuine concerns about their jobs and security, extremist parties have managed to ‘detoxify’ their image and gain popular support across Europe and beyond. So this month’s magazine is a call to ‘retoxify the far right’ and to reclaim the political ground we have lost.
Jean Kayigamba fled his own war-torn home country – Rwanda – a decade ago. His return is an emotional journey of hope and renewal.
And elsewhere this month we tackle a topical question which has divided the environmental movement: is nuclear energy necessary for a carbon- free future?]]>Wed, 1 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000Climate change denialhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/33
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/33New Internationalist magazineGetting to grips with the climate deniers
To those who need no convincing on the matter of human-induced climate change, encountering deniers can be baffling and tiring in equal measure. It’s not just the spurious arguments, it’s the passionate conviction with which they are voiced that can wrong-foot one. Deniers also have a pesky habit of switching from one charge to the next, rather than staying the course of the argument.
So this edition offers an article to hold them still for a while. It had been our intention for some time to present a guide to rebutting the arguments most commonly used by the deniers, including some that have a degree of scientific credibility. And in writer and climate activist Danny Chivers we found the perfect person to do the job.
Danny has been on the frontline of such exchanges long enough to have the arguments, wit and facts to hand – but, as he was keen to point out, the psychology of denial plays an important role and knowing how to talk to a denier is perhaps as important as what you say. He is also the author of our brand new book The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change: The science, the solutions, the way forward.
The flipside – the absurd and dangerous lengths we go to in pursuing fossil fuels – is revealed in our piece on fracking – a term, I fear, we will be seeing in headlines more and more. Not sure what it is? Find out the, literally, earthshaking truth on page 24.
Finally, Morwari Zafar’s compelling report from Afghanistan demonstrates yet again why the West’s crazy war on drugs fails the real victims every time.]]>Sun, 1 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000China - makers of the miraclehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/34
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/34New Internationalist magazineTide of change coming
In a world battered by debt and speculation crises the Chinese economic miracle remains one of the few bright spots on the horizon of traditional economists. There is a preoccupation in the ‘dismal science’ (as Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle dubbed economics) with all things Chinese that can add or knock off hundreds of points on global stock markets on any particular day.
The exchange rate of the yuan, the latest Chinese inflation numbers and how they affect interest charges, issues of intellectual property rights or protectionism have become the daily fare of the economic tea-leaf- readers. But what has been left out of this calculus until recently is the price of labour.
Now Chinese workers are starting to change all that as they organize against a system that treats them as cheap and expendable commodities. China’s workers are announcing the end of the cheap labour model that has fuelled the biggest manufacturing boom in history.
Spreading out from the Pearl River Delta in South China to the rest of the country is a movement that even the draconian censors of the Communist Party cannot keep quiet. In this edition we listen to what these workers have to say, particularly to Western consumers so hungry for inexpensive Chinese clothes and electronics. ‘At what cost?’ they demand to know.
Elsewhere in this issue Mark Engler tackles the $700 billion US military budget and questions why even the hint of a suggestion of a cut (at a time when many citizens must tighten their belts) is so taboo.
We also return to the Yasuní National Park, to find out how Ecuador’s bold plan to leave its oil in the ground – in return for compensation from the international community – is faring.]]>Fri, 1 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000Up in armshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/35
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/35New Internationalist magazineWho’s in the economic driving seat now?
A few months ago, when I started work on ‘The Great Rebellion’, an uprising by the Arab people was equally difficult to forecast as its outcome is now, as we go to press.
Media coverage in the West immediately suggested that the fate of the Egyptian people must rest in the hands of the US Government, which has funded the Egyptian apparatus of repression for so long. But despotism has been justified once too often by the ignorant and deceitful fantasy that the people of the region are wedded to Islamic extremism.
The truth is that the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings were just the most recent in a sequence that began in Latin America, continues through much of Asia and is a response to the despotism of free- market fundamentalism and corporate globalization. Because of this response, the ‘Third’ or Majority World has largely avoided The Great Recession and is now in the economic driving seat. And because of this – if for no other reason – the Western physician would be well advised to heal itself. It could do worse than begin by abandoning the prescriptions of the corporate media, which failed just as miserably to diagnose both the Great Recession and the Great Rebellion.
Elsewhere in the magazine we peep inside the paranoid minds of conspiracy theorists, give the humble honeybee a much-needed helping hand, and applaud the global mobilizations of Avaaz.]]>Tue, 1 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000Who's pushing politicians' buttons?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/36
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/36New Internationalist magazineWho’s pushing politicians’ buttons?
What’s Sarah Palin doing on the cover of New Internationalist? Don’t we get to see too much of her already? And what’s the connection with corporate lobbying?
Admittedly, there might be more obvious symbols of the cosy relationship between politics and big business than the bear-hunting darling of the Tea Party.
But that’s the point. Such relationships work best when they’re not obvious. And the covert corporate funding of the Tea Party is a mega-PR coup of recent times. It’s one of the examples highlighted in our awards for The 10 Worst Corporate Lobbyists, compiled for us by Corporate Europe Observatory.
Someone whose name is firmly associated with challenging corporate power is veteran writer and activist Susan George. We interview her as her new book Whose Crisis? Whose Future? hits the shops. This month we are also featuring Hugo Blanco, Peru’s living answer to Che Guevara. Today he is a leading eco-activist, campaigning both for the environment and the indigenous people who are defending it against mining and logging companies.
Our debate this month provides food for thought – literally. We ask ‘Is being vegan the only green option?’ And, for a bit of culture, our reviewers choose their best books, music and films of the past year – a first novel by an African writer hitting the top spot.]]>Sat, 1 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000Zero carbon worldhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/37
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/37New Internationalist magazineCan I have some truth with my news please?
It's an honour to have John Pilger back in the pages of the New Internationalist. An unflinching seeker after truth and justice, he has had quite an influence on me over the years.
I remember vividly, as a student, watching his documentary about the brutal Indonesian occupation of East Timor, and the sense of disbelief and outrage at the revelation that my government was providing the Hawk jets responsible for the massacre of thousands.
More than anyone else, it was John Pilger who brought home to me the extent to which the corporate media was presenting me with a distorted picture, and led me to seek out alternative, independent sources of news and analysis. His work is no doubt one of the reasons why I am now at the New Internationalist and not News International...
This month, he releases a new film, taking aim at journalists and the news industry, and the way they support and perpetuate war. We talk to him about it on page 29.
December also sees the Cancún climate summit, for which no-one, it seems, has high hopes. So to counteract the doom and gloom, we tackle the following questions: is a zero carbon world possible? (Answer: yes.) What would it look like? And how can we get there?
Elsewhere in the magazine, we debate the emotive subject of whether there should be any controls at all on immigration, highlight the growing rebellion in West Papua, and take a peek inside the mind of legendary civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.
All this, and (if you’re a subscriber) the magazine now arrives through your letterbox in 100 per cent compostable bags!]]>Wed, 1 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000Humans vs. Naturehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/38
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/38New Internationalist magazineWhen Jamie James’ report of strife and murder over mummified caterpillars in a remote high-altitude region of Nepal reached our office, it exerted a curious, somewhat icky fascination. This was rhino horn and tiger penis territory, but here the irresistible lure of a natural aphrodisiac was ruining human lives rather than endangering animal ones.
It’s another variant of the youth- in-a-jar promise that we seem to be so good at falling for. Whereas the pharmaceutical industry has medicalized erections and turned the human penis into a blow-up device (while undoubtedly bringing relief to men with reluctant members), traditional medicine has always played up the symbolic values of potency – strength, virility, endurance. In short, it has gone for the jugular in terms of the values many men consider ‘masculine’, and inflated and distorted those notions to moneymaking advantage. It’s not just the male peacock that likes to strut.
It is to James’ credit that he sees beyond the way-out aspects of the story and enters the lives of those affected by the trade in yarsagumba with empathy and understanding. Which is what compelled us to publish it.
Another dangerous business is Lebanese writer Joumana Haddad’s publishing venture. She has received rape and death threats for the magazine she brings out which gives Arab contributors a unique forum for sexual expression. Prick hypocrisy and it goes on the warpath.
Last month’s newly introduced Argument section which debated the ethics of buying and selling human organs brought some thoughtful responses – we’ve printed a selection on page 37. This month we enter the thickets of public service cuts which our politicians are peddling as a necessary evil.
Our leading theme ‘Humans vs. Nature’ boils down to a simple question – can our self-obsessed species be stirred to safeguard the natural environment we live in? We’re sure you have a view.]]>Mon, 1 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000A wake-up call for democracyhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/39
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/39New Internationalist magazineExciting times at New Internationalist!
With this issue, we are thrilled to unveil a fresh design with many new elements. There’s now a regular debate – called Argument. This month’s tackles the ethical minefield of buying and selling human organs for transplantation. We have introduced a forward-looking news section – Agenda – that links to events in the month ahead. There’s more global culture in an extended Arts section. And we now have a slot for Alternatives and an ‘Applause’ page that celebrates individuals or groups who are making change happen.
At the same time we have just launched a new website. See what you think at www.newint.org. The aim is for easier interaction with you, our readers and subscribers. But we also want to connect all of New Internationalist’s different activities – the ethical shop we run, for example, and the wide variety of books we publish. Talking of which, there are two mouth-watering recipes from the hot-off-the-press Global Vegetarian Kitchen on page 54.
This new-look magazine is the product of months of consultation, with readers, subscribers and potential subscribers. You told us you wanted more positive stories, more debate, larger text and more of a chance to interact with us. We hope we’ve delivered.
One thing we absolutely did not want, was to lose the things that people really value about the magazine – its in-depth analysis, its capacity to get to the issues behind the news, its international focus on justice, human rights and the environment.
In this month’s issue we give special attention to the state of democracy in the world today, with an article from India about Arundhati Roy’s extraordinary confrontation with the authorities, an interview with Robert Fisk about the Middle East and a piece by Latin America’s leading commentator on grassroots democracy, Raúl Zibechi.
As we worked on the magazine, democracy seemed a doubly appropriate subject for us to be tackling. The process of developing the new look has been unusually democratic – it’s the way we tend to do things in a workers’ co-op. As a charmingly understated placard on a recent demonstration in Stuttgart put it: ‘Democracy is sometimes a little bit difficult...’
But the most important part of this process is yet to come. That’s the bit when you tell us what you think of the new magazine and website.
Please be honest. We can take it.]]>Fri, 1 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000Seed savershttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/42
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/42New Internationalist magazineThe frontline against world hunger
This month’s main theme focuses on seeds – the real things, that is. In their bounty, however, they also offer a lazy metaphor for almost anything that flourishes. So here goes.
The next time you see New Internationalist magazine it will have grown. For the past few months a fresh variety has been germinating in the fertile soils of Oxford, Adelaide, Ottawa and Christchurch. It has evolved organically in response to runaway climate change in the media, but without genetic modification to its roots. It will blossom in October to attract the pollinators it needs (not beleaguered bees, by the way, but you, our beloved subscribers, and your friends) to fertilize an ecosystem otherwise suffocated by invasive corporate monoculture. People have three-colour vision just to tell the difference, so the red of this new growth’s delicious fruit will be set against a background of leafy green. A staple crop of information, ideas and inspiration from around the world is, assuredly, the best way to nourish and propagate a future worth having.
So, elsewhere in this ‘heritage’ magazine, there’s a foretaste of greater diversity to come: the long-awaited cross-fertilization of a major trade union (the United Steelworkers in the US) with a big co-operative (Mondragón in the Basque Country); a bloom of activism, and another potential infestation of corporate control, on the World Wide Web. The seeds of possibility may lie dormant in ground made barren by corporate globalization, but they are still fertile.]]>Wed, 1 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000Life beyond growthhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/43
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/43New Internationalist magazineI put in a new vegetable garden this year, ambitiously too big, I’m sure. But it feels good to watch the thin green shoots battle with the birds, the bugs and the hot sun. This is growth I can live with – productive and life-affirming. The other kind, the one that rules our economic lives, is more disturbing.
As the iconoclastic US writer Kenneth Boulding once quipped: ‘If you believe exponential growth can go on in a finite world, you’re either a madman or an economist.’
There are lots of people who understand that, at least implicitly. In my neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, our local park has become a laboratory for reclaiming public space, an alternative vision of the way the world could be. There are volunteer gardens, an outdoor bake oven, an organic farmers’ market and Friday night community suppers.
Like the enthusiasm for local food systems and ‘downshifting’, our park is a small part of the transition which is slowly emerging. Thousands of people are thinking creatively and building new lives with a smaller environmental footprint – a post-growth world in the making. You’ll find more examples in this issue.
You’ll find another kind of creativity in our ‘Southern Exposure’ photo feature as Bangladesh photographer Shahidul Alam uses his art to expose the impunity of the state’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion. Another feature from the New Economics Foundation (a terrific source of information on the need to challenge economic growth, by the way) looks at how to define and measure poverty accurately.
As with economic growth, you’ve got to measure what counts, not just count what you can measure.]]>Thu, 1 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000Deported! What happened next?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/44
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/44New Internationalist magazineDeported people behave pretty conveniently once they have been bundled off. They keep quiet.
There are a number of reasons why they do this. They have been shamed and traumatized by what they have undergone and want a clean break. They have landed into great danger and have gone into hiding. They have no wherewithal to support themselves and are struggling to survive. Or perhaps maintaining contact with the life they had wanted and had to leave behind is just too painful.
So when I started digging around for people who had suffered deportation and who would be willing to talk to me, I kept drawing a blank. Some were too afraid to talk, even under conditions of anonymity.
But more often the anti-deportation activists I got in touch with said that after the first few frantic exchanges, people tended to slip away. The pressures of the life they had been flung into ruled out further contact.
It’s a silence that suits the authorities of wealthy countries who continue to treat people in this inhumane fashion, branding them ‘bogus’, and claiming smugly that deportees face no danger and have been resettled. Fortunately it’s a silence I was eventually able to pierce. Read the testimonies and judge for yourself.
Elsewhere in the magazine we explore essential questions of equity that lie behind everything we do. Bob Hughes’s Special Feature makes the case cogently for an equality-based approach to tackling climate change – it has the best chance of offering lasting change and boosting wellbeing. Another article looks at what is happening on the ground on this front, reporting from the alternative climate change summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
I must also mention our feature on the murders of Russian journalists, who have paid with their lives for speaking out when the state would rather have them maintain silence. It’s a salutary reminder of the constant vigilance needed to protect our freedoms.]]>Tue, 1 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000Iraq - seven years laterhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/45
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/45New Internationalist magazineThe legacy of invasion
As I write this letter, Iraq’s fortunes hang in a delicate, dangerous balance.
Politicians horse-trade, bombs continue to kill innocents and Iraqis get on with the art of survival.
‘Iraq is finished,’ a middle-aged man told me on my trip to the beleaguered nation in March. And indeed at times it felt like that: a broken, divided and ultimately colonized place.
But, as always, it was the young people who inspired hope. A young actor, who had survived sanctions, Saddam and post-invasion violence, and who was rehearsing for a play about a beloved and fiercely nationalist poet, told me: ‘I love my country.’ And his statement was heartfelt.
I often wonder about the children in this photo, taken in 1998 when I was reporting on the US bombing campaign called Desert Fox. Even the day after bombing, in the midst of a crippling embargo, they displayed so much joy and resilience. What has become of them now? And what will the future hold for their children?
This issue offers only a handful of stories from a people who have suffered through decades of war, sanctions and occupation. But I hope it will give you a sense of the Iraqi spirit – al roh al iraqiya – that sustains them and has so touched me.
And our special feature by Rwandan genocide survivor Jean Baptiste Kayigamba brings home both the damage done to victims of war and sectarian violence, and the urgent need to bring those accountable to justice.]]>Sat, 1 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000Bloody oil - shut down the tar sands!https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/46
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/46New Internationalist magazineThe extraordinary destructiveness of the tar sands is further proof – if any were needed – that we have to move away from our reliance on oil. But like it or not, that’s a big ask.
Here at the New Internationalist Co-operative we try to put our principles into practice. So over the last few weeks we have been putting together a travel policy that, as one of its explicit aims, is intended to reduce the amount of flights we take as an organization.
It’s controversial. Most people in our workers’ co-op support, in theory, a cap on the number of flights we take collectively over the year. But how do we decide?
Should we ban flights to places in Europe, even if it takes more than a day to get there by train? Is it more important for an editor to fly to somewhere like Iraq or the Arctic for on-the-ground reporting, or for a member of staff from our Canadian, Australian or New Zealand/Aotearoa offices to come over to Oxford for face-to-face meetings, ensuring close, effective working relationships? Are we fetishizing flying when actually we only take an average of seven flights a year, which is already much lower than most similar operations? Are we risking losing touch with the world on which we report if we reduce the amount of time we spend out of the office?
As we continue to tie ourselves in ethical knots, we would be interested to know what you think – and especially if your organization has attempted something similar. ]]>Thu, 1 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000Globalization on the rockshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/47
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/47New Internationalist magazineSome time ago I read two pretty harrowing accounts of ‘seriously organized crime’. Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah describes it in the industrial hinterland of Naples. Misha Glenny’s McMafia visits similar territory almost everywhere else. The closer I looked into corporate globalization for this issue, the more it appeared to inhabit much the same place. The brutality, the banality, the blackmail, the bribes, the bets, the bag-carriers, the big bosses, the booty – the business model must surely have come from the same maker.
The clearest difference between them is, of course, that one is considered legitimate. But even that has begun to blur. For instance, in Britain a venal but relatively paltry system of parliamentary expenses has been aping the antics of the corporate world for years. Was it really pure chance – I began to wonder – that induced the corporate media to ‘expose’ it, (thereby distracting public attention and discrediting parliament) only when immeasurably larger and more fateful sums of public cash were being requisitioned to salvage corporate globalization? Pure chance would be a fine thing. A profound conflict between corporate globalization and democratic legitimacy looks set to take centre stage for some time to come.
After the Copenhagen climate change fiasco, more hopeful signs are now visible in Bolivia. A People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights starts in Cochabamba on 19 April. The prospects are explored in some depth on pages 21-24. By way of a reminder that the most significant causes always endure, on pages 34-35 some striking photographs celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.]]>Mon, 1 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000Too many of us? The population panic.https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/49
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/49New Internationalist magazineAt a political meeting recently, one woman got up and told us what rubbish ‘the media’ was and how you could not trust it. Others agreed. It gradually became clear that their idea of ‘media’ consisted of the corporate big fish in the mainstream. Not independent minnows like the New Internationalist.
It’s no secret that print media is struggling in these straitened times. Newspapers are worst hit. But magazines too are feeling the pinch. New Internationalist is no exception. In some ways we are fortunate in that we never relied too much on the now collapsing advertising market. Nor have we had a sugar daddy or mummy in the background that could cut us off without a penny.
Our business model is based on people like you subscribing to the magazine, buying the books we publish and the fair trade and ethical products we stock in our shop (shop.newint.org). And it’s thanks to you that the media does not consist entirely of just a few mass circulation titles in hock to corporate power. I’d love to hear from you (vanessab@newint.org) if there is anything you think we should be covering or could be doing differently.
This issue’s main theme is the hot topic of population. Is the mounting panic about increasing human numbers reasonable? There’s an on-the-ground special report from the recent Copenhagen climate talks by Jess Worth. And we tell the inspiring story of an against-all-odds friendship between Rami Elhanan, an Israeli, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian, who feature in our best-selling book Nine Lives. As usual at this time, we present The Unreported Year 2009, a round-up of the best films, music and books, and the NI Jumbo Crossword.]]>Fri, 1 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000Welcome to Copenhagen!https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/50
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/50New Internationalist magazineThe Great Climate Sale
You may be wondering what Al Gore is doing on the front of this magazine. Hasn't he done an admirable job in raising awareness about the urgency of climate change? Isn't it a bit unfair of the NI to suggest that he views global warming as a means of generating a cascade of dollar bills?
Well, yes and no.
Millions of people have been moved by An Inconvenient Truth, but far fewer know that Al Gore was the original climate capitalist. It was Al who, back in 1997, insisted that business-friendly loopholes should be written into the first international climate agreement, allowing the industrialized world to ‘offset’ rather than curb its own pollution. Al has been lobbying hard for the expansion of carbon markets ever since.
Now, I in no way wish to play into the hands of the US climate denialist nutjobs who point to Al's significant investments in carbon trading firms as evidence that climate change itself is a massive scam he dreamed up to boost his personal fortune. That's dangerous nonsense. The scam here is that the world's rich and powerful, including Mr Gore, are claiming they can fix the broken system that has brought us to the brink of climate catastrophe with the same tools that broke it.
This will come to a head at the UN Climate Summit this December in Copenhagen. Hopefully this magazine will help you make sense of what's going on. I'll be there, reporting for the NI, so check our website for news and views you won't find in the mainstream media.
Elsewhere in this issue, Jeremy Seabrook calls for socialism to be rescued, and we mark two 25th anniversaries: the birth of Brazil's Landless Movement, and the world's worst industrial accident in Bhopal, India.]]>Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000Terror takeoverhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/51
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/51New Internationalist magazineThe monstrous march of the security state
Sometimes a story can make you want to run away and hide.
I was on the phone to Ajit Sahi, talking about his tenacious reportage that had blown the lid off one particular narrative. Last year he had investigated how the Indian state had banned a grouping called the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) just days after 9/11, and thereafter how the police had locked up scores of former SIMI members as suspected terrorists. Incredibly, Sahi was the first independent journalist to explore whether the charges held up. The rest of the Indian news media had been content to parrot the official line.
Over three months, he investigated case after case, met many of the accused, their families – and discovered that there hadn’t been a shred of viable evidence presented in any of the cases. He recounted how, after meeting a stream of weeping relatives whose lives had been ripped up and hearing tales of gruesome abuse, he thought he was going crazy. The truth can be like that sometimes.
And then he said what was on my mind – if it could happen to all these people, could it not happen to me or you? Given the right set of circumstances and prejudices, of course. In his piece for us, he looks back on that story and the continuing scandal of those wrongly accused.
Terrorism must be countered with the sharpest and best means at our disposal, there can be no doubt about that. And our best attempts must also be made to plug its wellsprings with whatever works – often boring diplomacy.
But we cannot let justice suffer, and kick aside years of work on building up human rights, as our first response to terrorism. Which is exactly what we seem to have done. It does nothing to solve the problem; instead we create new ones to get mired in.
The quest for justice continues in our photographic Special Feature this month, which chronicles the dogged effort required all round in a situation as complex as that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the use of rape as a weapon of war was widespread. And in our Essay from Sierra Leone, we see how an expensive international judicial set-up has left a rather impoverished legacy. ]]>Sun, 1 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000Islam in powerhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/52
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/52New Internationalist magazineChange from within
‘Islam in power’ is a contradiction in terms, said contributor Ziauddin Sardar, when I first mentioned this issue’s title to him.
The foundation for Muslim democracy, he maintains, lies in egalitarianism not in authoritarian theocracies. In fact, he contends, the whole idea of the Islamic state is un-Islamic, since the faith is a universalist not a nationalist movement. Grassroots decision making is much more in line with Islamic tradition than authoritarianism.
I was thinking about this the other day while attending a service at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford. The sermon was about the need for community consultation and consensus, whose Islamic equivalents are met in the concepts of shura and ijma. Later there was discussion about how to re-invigorate the church and make it relevant in the modern world. Issues around women bishops and gay rights were the elephants in the room.
I was reminded of issues the ‘Islamic world’ is contending with – ones that we explore this month. With dispatches from a Saudi feminist, an Iranian Jewish woman and a gay Iraqi Muslim activist, we hope to expand the concept of the larger ummah or community. And with a feature by Nafeez Ahmed on the connections between Western intelligence agencies and Islamist extremists, we offer a peek at realpolitik.
On the way back from the service at Christ Church, I crossed paths with a Muslim man coming back from his isha prayers at the mosque. Ramadan mubarak, I told him, and he nodded back. Acknowledgement and inclusion of the other are pan-Abrahamic traditions that need to be revived on all sides.
And our special feature this month on green law is all about acknowledging the rights of the earth itself.
Here’s to the fine art of mutual respect.]]>Thu, 1 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000Where have all the Bees gone?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/53
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/53New Internationalist magazineI had a lot of help and advice when I was preparing this issue from people who know much more about bees than I’ll ever dream of knowing. One was Charlie Parker, a beekeeper who lives near Beamsville, Ontario, not far from Niagara Falls. Charlie generously gave me a day of his time, drove me to see some of his hives and told me his life story. He started keeping bees when he was 13; he’s now 62. ‘It’s just like a disease, beekeeping,’ Charlie mused. ‘Once you’re stung, you’ve got the bug.’ No pun intended.
NI friend and frequent contributor Mari Marcel Thekaekara, and her partner Stan, also helped by contributing the article on honey gatherers in Tamil Nadu, India. Keeping it in the family, her two sons shot a wonderful sequence of photos to illustrate the article.
Unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to read about Charlie in the pages of this magazine. Nor see all the photos sent by Mari and Stan.
But take heart digital devotees. We will be featuring the full interview with Charlie and all the photos from Mari and Stan on our website when this issue is posted in a few weeks’ time.
Instead, we’ve added some timely features – including an analysis of the foreign aid debate sparked by the contentious Nigerian academic, Dambisa Moyo. And a pressing piece from journalist Nick Harvey on the situation of Hmong refugees in Thailand.
We’re still not sure if the exploding world of digital media will be our demise or our salvation here at NI. But at least it gives you a chance to read the stuff we couldn’t squeeze into print.]]>Tue, 1 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000Surviving change in the Arctichttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/54
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/54New Internationalist magazineSome like it cold
Am I a hypocrite? In order to put this magazine together, I flew halfway across the world, contributing to the very problem – climate change – that is threatening the Arctic’s future. Some of my colleagues felt that I shouldn’t have gone: it caused a heated discussion in the New Internationalist Co-op while I was planning my trip. They felt that the flight wasn't justified and that we risked losing our readers’ respect.
But what is the alternative? Could I have written with accuracy about this extraordinarily remote, unimaginably different part of the world if I had never set foot in it? More importantly, how can we fulfil our mission to tell the stories that are ignored and bring out the voices that seldom get heard if we do not, from time to time, venture off the beaten track to find them?
It’s a painful dilemma for anyone who is paying attention to the scale of the climate crisis – especially those of us who work on international issues. Here at the NI we will continue to wrestle with it. Don't worry, we're still all speaking to each other – but we’d love to know where you stand.
While I was breaking every rule in the Good Climate Citizen’s handbook, thankfully our Australian co-editor was Doing The Right Thing. Chris Richards attempted to survive without using her car. You can find out how she fared in this month's Special Feature.
In Mixed Media we review some fascinating documentaries – exposing the way NGOs are packaging poverty for Western consumption, and Big Pharma's latest money-spinner: 'female sexual dysfunction'. If that all sounds a bit heavy, then discover with us the powerful beats of Comrade Fatso, Zimbabwean rapper and modern-day freedom fighter. Enjoy!]]>Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000China in chargehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/55
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/55New Internationalist magazineI remember the Cold War with no warmth. It was a time of paranoid rantings. In one corner sat the capitalist ‘running-dogs’ (the United States); in the other, those ‘communist bastards’ (the USSR). Ignoring the poor inside and outside their countries, both sides threw ever-increasing fortunes at an arms race doomed to fail. Russia collapsed under the weight of it.
Today – as China’s influence on the world overtakes that of the United States – paranoid rantings are returning to international debate. In my country, Australia, there’s public disagreement between the intelligence and defence forces about whether we need to ramp up our military to defend ourselves from the Chinese. Putting aside the rather awkward reality that the Chinese outnumber Australians 60 to 1, the good news is that China gives no indication of wanting to take up arms and expand beyond the boundaries it already claims. It doesn’t need to. This magazine should help to explain why.
‘Emerging superpower’ is just one of those buttons that, when pressed, provokes extreme reactions in governments. In China, ‘dissenter’ is another. Twenty years ago this month, Chinese tanks rolled over protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The picture of a young man standing alone in front of one of the tanks was – and still is – beamed around the world. It is a potent symbol of the power of protest, celebrating the bravery of individuals who stand up against the full force of government to claim their rights. It is a timely reminder, for it is not just in China where repression rages. This month’s Special Feature, ‘You are being watched’, reports on surveillance tactics being used by police and special forces on picket lines from New York to New Zealand. Tiananmen Square may be closer to home than you think.]]>Mon, 1 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000Multiculturalismhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/56
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/56New Internationalist magazineMulticulturalism. Is it working?
When designer Alan Hughes first pitched the cover that you now see on the front of this edition, I went, ‘Oh no...’ This kind of image is often used as a shorthand to pose questions of integration and identity.
So up I got on my high horse, lecturing anyone who would listen about such essentialism. I felt uncomfortable that this woman was being reduced to her burkha, at the conflict of values suggested (‘Islam and the West’ – two grand monoliths!), at the singling out, yet again, of supposed Muslim identities when problems of cultural interaction are deeper and wider. There’s a debate on women’s clothing and choice raging in our Letters page at the moment and this seemed like an unhappy reflection of that, too.
For me, identity and beliefs are about choice, taking on board the things to which I feel an affinity. But when the media goes into overdrive over ‘home-grown terror’ and ‘culture clashes’, I wonder about all those people identified immediately as being members of one group or another, and the limitations of such identity. Choice and reasoning seem to jump right out the window.
But others in the NI co-operative felt differently. They felt the image went to the heart of people’s concerns about culturally diverse societies, concerns to which they might find some answers in the edition you hold in your hands. The provocation of the image, if such it was, could be answered by the nuance of the text. One more tricky decision was how to convey the issues surrounding faith schools. It would have been easy to run yet another piece analyzing and attacking their place in secular democracies. But I hadn’t really heard much from people who had been to such schools and when I interviewed Laura McAllister, she put up a robust defence. Whether I agreed with her was not the point; her personal experience animated the discussion.
Getting to know the ‘Other’ is essential to making cultural diversity work to social advantage. Our Special Feature this month highlights peace initiatives among our most iconic ‘Others’ – Israelis and Palestinians. Despite everything that is stacked against them, civilians are picking up the common thread of their shared humanity. In the end that’s what it ought to be about.]]>Fri, 1 May 2009 00:00:00 +0000Put people firsthttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/58
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/58New Internationalist magazineJobs, climate, justice
So a receding economic tide has exposed the naked bathers. Once upon a time, a rising economic tide supposedly lifted all boats. The tide will rise again. Won't it?
Well, the passing likeness of capitalism to one force of nature does not eliminate all the others. Throughout my lengthening lifetime capitalism has segued from one 'crisis' to the next, more like a cancerous growth. I can't, off-hand, think of a single day when a capitalist crisis of one sort or another was not seeking immediate attention. Though reports of the death of capitalism have often proved exaggerated, the tide receded most memorably just before the tsunami in 2004.
Capitalism, socialism, fundamentalism, nationalism, isms and ists of all kinds have apparently failed us, claiming by way of an excuse that perfection would come with the next rising tide. In one sense everyone has been bathing naked – and finally has that one thing, at least, in common. So we have little choice but to recognize ourselves for what we are and consider the remaining options afresh.
Some of them are remarkably attractive and are explored a little further in this magazine. At the same time, the New Internationalist has for once stepped out of the commentary box and actively joined the growing campaign for a just and sustainable future. One immediate focus is the mobilization (see pages i-xvi) around the 2 April meeting in London of the G20 – a self-appointed huddle of 'world leaders' that is part of the problem. In the years ahead, the real challenge will be to construct a more habitable and diverse economic, social and political 'architecture' from the bottom up, on much firmer foundations as a result.
This will doubtless include the people of North Korea. You'll also find in this magazine a rare insight into the daily lives of people once judged to inhabit an 'Axis of Evil'. North Koreans may not be naked, but they are recognizable all the same. The financial meltdown has given the Minority World just a taste of what it has been like to live in the Majority World for far too long already. If the chickens do not eventually come home to roost, then eggs will be off the menu for good.]]>Wed, 1 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000Mothers who diehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/59
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/59New Internationalist magazineThis month’s main theme has been put together with the support of UNICEF. It actually emerges out of research and writing that I did last year for the UN agency, which has been doing its utmost in recent months to raise awareness of the unnecessary deaths of mothers and newborn children, especially in Africa and South Asia. I’ve been writing for UNICEF alongside my work for New Internationalist for eight years now, yet this is the first time for more than a decade that there has been such a close collaboration between the two organizations. We hope it will be the first of many.
March marks the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile from Chinese-occupied Tibet, followed by thousands of his compatriots. Journalist Nick Harvey has visited Tibetans in both India and Nepal and heard about all the frustrations of life in exile – as well as their plans for future resistance. They are probably now wondering if the new US President might conceiv- ably make a difference to their situation.
One of Obama’s first acts following his inauguration was to draw a line under one of the most shameful episodes in recent US history – the living monument to human rights abuse represented by its Guantánamo prison camp. This magazine carries testimony not only from a former prisoner but also from an ex-guard who is just as outspoken about the inhumanity of the penal regime.
Maternal mortality, Tibet, Guantánamo... big issues clearly worthy of notice. But these editor’s letters rarely draw attention to some of our regular features that in their own quiet way tell us just as much about the shape of our world. Maria Golia’s Letter from Cairo, for instance, this month offers a vignette drawn from everyday life that speaks volumes about the knots of culture, race and class in which we all tie ourselves up.]]>Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000Climate justicehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/61
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/61New Internationalist magazineTaking the power back
'Is the economic crisis going to be the end of green?'
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has asked, provoking a furious debate online. I've been hearing such rumblings a lot lately. The financial meltdown has certainly eclipsed climate change as the crisis du jour: and if last month's UN climate talks in Poznan were anything to go by, it's making it even harder to get progress from governments that is anything other than cheap and half-hearted.
This is a most dangerous state of affairs. It's like finding out that you've got cancer, but then delaying going to the doctor's for treatment for a few months because you want to repaint your house. No doubt your house needs a lot of work, but ultimately there's little point if you won't be around to enjoy it.
Stopping climate change must be our number one priority – and this is the main theme of this month's magazine. But how we go about it goes hand in hand with the task of rebuilding a fairer economy, as we highlight in the 'Clean Start' special feature. The same crushing injustices that triggered the financial collapse have been driving global warming. Now, suddenly, we have an opportunity to change the system. Can we seize it?
With this in mind, the NI held a 'Clean Start' event on 15 December. Speakers included NI contributors Walden Bello and Susan George, and the lively discussion ranged from how we got into this global mess, through specific policies that would put us on a fairer greener path, to how we build a movement to make it happen. Don't worry if you missed it – you can watch clips of all the speakers on our website.
The stakes couldn't be higher. I urge you to get involved, at: www.newint.org/cleanstart]]>Thu, 1 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000Crisis! Crisis! Food... Money... What next?https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/62
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/62New Internationalist magazineManifesto for a fairer future
Told ye so! There, I said it – but for those of us long sceptical of corporate power and the money machine, it’s hard to resist the temptation. As stock markets tumble, banks plead for public bailout and predictions of a gloomy future cloud the neoliberal sky, we’re no longer prophets in the wilderness. And as usual, the real losers will not be those ‘who can’t afford to fail’ but those for whom failure has been preordained from birth.
This issue deals with the series of crises that have hit so hard this year. The first part concentrates on the hunger crisis provoked by escalating food prices. This is followed by a special section dealing with the debt and credit situation that has plunged the world into the most serious economic downturn since the ‘Dirty Thirties’. In both parts we take an initial stab at what alternatives based on a fairer future might look like, and how to seize this vital moment.
Over the years, the NI has spilt a lot of ink drawing out the common strands of experience (and often exploitation) that link people in the Global North to those in the Global South. But reality is now providing much more graphic lessons. During the 1980s almost every country in the South experienced a wrenching debt crisis as they tried to pay off usurious loans from big international banks recycling petrodollars. With the current ‘First World’ debt crisis, the shoe is on the other foot. Homes are being repossessed and job losses are starting to mount across the North. And who is responsible? Those same pesky financial wheelerdealers.
So far the North has not experienced the widespread hunger and malnutrition that haunts a billion people – and counting – in the South. But we are facing some pretty hard times. What better point to start making the links of our common humanity, so that we can begin to control capital rather than the other way round.
For, in the end, ‘told ye so’ will not build a fairer world.]]>Mon, 1 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000Through Afghan eyeshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/63
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/63New Internationalist magazineThe war that won't end
‘Good. You’re doing the obvious thing,’ said Zuhra Bahman, one of the contributors to this month’s New Internationalist.
The ‘obvious thing’ in question was getting the main theme – on Afghanistan – written and illustrated by Afghans. I was pleased that she was pleased – but still a little worried by the logistics. Thirty years of armed conflict – yes, Afghanistan’s turmoil began two decades before the Twin Towers fell – has not fostered a rich and vibrant tradition of journalism in the country. Grinding poverty, warlord violence and Taliban strictures denied even the most basic education to large swathes of the population – especially women and girls. Today, press freedom supposedly prevails but the case of young reporter Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who is appealing against a death sentence for downloading material relating to women’s rights, suggests otherwise.
The writers featured here are not to be silenced or intimidated, however. They have provided perspectives that are immediate and insightful; subtle, complex and brave. So have the photographers. Nearly all the pictures were taken by people trained in the remarkable home-grown Aina Photojournalism Institute in Kabul. Some had never held a camera before the institute was established eight years ago. Today they are producing first-rate imagery which is being sold around the world through the Kabul-based AINA Photo Agency/Afghanistan.
Harder to sell these days is the disastrous model of capitalism that flourished under the watch of Alan Greenspan, head of the US Federal Reserve Board between 1987 and 2006. No single person is responsible for the current global crisis but Greenspan was the neocons’ economic guru and he could have read the writing on the wall had he chosen to. All of which makes him an appropriate target for this month’s Worldbeater. Meanwhile, for any nouveau pauvre city banker thinking of trading in the Porsche or the 4x4, we recommend our Special Feature – it’s all about the humble bicycle. Perhaps the ‘bamboo bike’ would suit?
Special thanks to Abdul Basir of the British and Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group for his editorial advice, patience and readiness to make his contacts network buzz for this month’s main theme.]]>Sat, 1 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000Wanted! For dodging tax justicehttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/64
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/64New Internationalist magazineNo-one enjoys paying taxes. So it’s not entirely surprising that conventional wisdom has taken the easy option and declared that the only good tax is a cut one. Less familiar is the way this became a ‘tax consensus’ imposed worldwide, much like the neoliberal Washington Consensus itself, with disastrous long-term consequences. For the time being, we’re still getting crunched by the consensus that is the real cause, even as its brokers cast aside what principles they ever had and blackmail taxpayers into bailing them out. Questions will have to be answered, and sooner rather than later, about what sort of taxes are now being paid by what sort of people to what sort of purpose, and these are explored in some detail in the main theme, which begins on page 4.
Those who rely on the corporate media will not be fully aware, either, that a small island in the Caribbean has aspirations to become a ‘humanitarian superpower’. The extraordinary story of the 30,000 Cuban doctors who are propping up healthcare services around the world is told first hand-hand on page 34. If you share the Washington Consensus, you will dismiss this as political propaganda. If you think healthcare matters, there are plenty of useful lessons to be learned from the Cubans.
Another example worth following can be found in the innovative campaign to prevent oil from destroying the much more precious Yasuní biosphere reserve in Ecuador. This was the focus of our July magazine and is the subject of our Yasuní Green Gold book of photographs, which is launched in October. The NI co-operative has decided to back the campaign in whatever way we usefully can. Our own limited resources are, of course, as nothing compared with what you, our many thousands of active subscribers and readers around the world, can achieve if you join in at this critical moment, which you can do quite easily by visiting www.newint.org/yasuni. In any event, we’ll keep you posted online and in future editions of this magazine.]]>Wed, 1 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000Drowning in plastichttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/66
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/66New Internationalist magazineI don’t know about you but I’m both an inveterate label reader and a sceptic – have been for years. Cans, boxes, bottles: you name it, I read it. It’s a bit of an in-joke at our family dinner table. There’s Dad reading the label on the pickle jar again. Maybe it comes from growing up when consumerism was still in its infancy and the wonders of modern science were accepted without question.
‘Better living through chemistry’ was more than an advertising slogan back then – it was, in those innocent times, a declaration of faith in modernity. Then came DDT, asbestos, agent orange and horrors of Love Canal. Suddenly, corporate chemistry didn’t look so good anymore.
Today it’s more of the same. The toxic substances in your sunscreen, shower curtains, plastic bottles and cleaning products may be killing you. Chemical companies are literally getting away with murder. Profits trump human health – the industry continues to peddle poisons with little accountability while resisting any attempts to regulate their trade.
So I read labels, recycle like crazy, shun food additives and try to limit my intake of hazardous chemicals.
But it’s not enough. As citizens we have the right to know what poisons are out there. We need to push our lawmakers to get tough. How can we allow industry to poison people for profit in the 21st century?]]>Mon, 1 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000We need to think about toiletshttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/67
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/67New Internationalist magazineThe problem with toilets is that no-one wants to talk about them. Even less do they want to talk about what goes into them (the ‘s’ word) or the act of human waste expulsion (the ‘d’ word) – except with smirks and giggles.
That kind of verbal crap has been swilling remorselessly around the NI editorial offices in Oxford this month. Why do Brits (maybe it’s only the male of the species) take such delight in lavatorial double entendres? Swedes can talk about excremental effluvia and pee-H content without the least hilarity issuing from their lips.
Ballcocks aside, this is a serious subject. Imagine what it is like not to have a decent place to ‘go’. It is not surprising that people don’t want to talk about the indignity they suffer – although some women do so in these pages.
The hidden scandal is that this is a situation endured by literally millions of people. Addressing the scandal demands as a first requirement that we learn to talk about it without embarrassment.
So it’s back to language and staying within the bounds of what you, the readers, daily defecators as we all are, regard as good taste. I hope to succeed in opening the door – or should it be the lid? – and inviting you in.]]>Fri, 1 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000Viva Yasuní! Life vs Big Oilhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/68
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/68New Internationalist magazineIt was Sam Martingell, one of our street campaigners, who sowed the seed for the main theme of this issue. He knew two young people who were desperate to communicate the wonders of Ecuador’s Yasuní rainforest, with a view to saving it and the cultures of its peoples from imminent destruction at the hands of oil companies.
Sam put the two – Ginés Haro Pastor and Georgina Donati – in touch with New Internationalist’s publications department. The result is a stunning photo book Yasuní Green Gold which will be published in September.
But we wanted to do more to draw attention to a potentially revolutionary proposal for tackling climate change: compensating oil-producing countries for loss of revenue as a result of their deliberately not exploiting fossil fuel reserves. Hence this month’s issue of NI, which we hope will help to explain the idea, stimulate interest, and save this ecologically crucial corner of the Western Amazon. The next few months are vital as the price of oil bites and the pressure on the Ecuadorian Government exerted by petroleum companies intensifies. But this could be the beginning of something quite momentous – a turning point not only for oil producing countries like Ecuador, but for all of us who would like to go on inhabiting this planet.
Also in this month’s issue of New Internationalist, we are venturing into a territory less common for a current affairs magazine – verse. ‘As if poetry mattered’, is how NI co-editor – and poet – Dinyar Godrej puts it, and his international selection manages to be both refreshingly immediate and hauntingly relevant.
While on the subject of creativity, few manage the fusion of politics, passion and imagination as well as Billy Bragg, whose latest album is reviewed on our Mixed Media pages. And to show that even those with massive clout don’t always win, we report on how the combined power of President Bush, BP, Barclays, Coca-Cola and Ford have failed to squash a multimillion dollar lawsuit against major corporations accused of persecuting South Africans by doing business with the apartheid regime. To find out what’s happening to the groundbreaking case, launched by former political prisoner Lungisile Ntsebeza and others, look at this month’s Currents section.
PS We would like to thank the Municipal Government of Orellana, Ecuador, for allowing us to use the pictures of Yasuní that appear in this magazine.]]>Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000Dropping the bombhttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/69
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/69New Internationalist magazineThe lorry carrying the warheads stopped in a lay-by so the driver could go to McDonald’s. So Russell, who’d been following the convoy, ran in after him and shouted: “Hey everybody, want to see what Britain’s weapons of mass destruction look like? They’re parked just outside!”
I’m in a café round the corner from the NI Oxford office, chuckling away at Nigel and Margaret’s story. They are die-hard anti-nuke activists, part of a network called Nukewatch which doggedly follows the bombs as they are transported up and down the country. They have documented brake failures, crashes and one hair-raising incident where a lorry carrying two warheads skidded on ice and rolled on to its side in Wiltshire. They show me photos of just how close a nuclear convoy comes to my house on a regular basis.
I had no idea. Before editing this issue of the magazine, I’d mainly thought about nuclear weapons in the abstract. The revelation that the Government is making new bombs all the time and driving them round the Oxford ring-road came as quite a shock.
If the powers-that-be had their way, we’d never know about any of this. The fact that we do is down to people like Nigel and Margaret, who sacrifice their time – and in some cases their liberty – to watch, track, bear witness and resist.]]>Sun, 1 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000Paris Climate Talks - COP21https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/107
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/107New Internationalist magazine#NICOP21
Covering the real story from inside the UN talks and on the streets, Jess Worth, Danny Chivers and Richard Roaf (our filmmaker) report from the frontline of the Paris COP21 negotiations.
These are the reports that you funded! Thanks so much for your support, and don't forget to check our full coverage unfold online: newint.org/live/2015/10/27/cop21
Join the conversation on twitter using #NICOP21]]>Wed, 2 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000World food crisishttps://digital.newint.com.au/issues/25
https://digital.newint.com.au/issues/25New Internationalist magazineThe New Internationalist arises from and in res­ponse to this growing movement. For the last two years it has been going out every term to the 33,000 students in British universities who are giving a per­centage of their grants each year to overseas develop­ment projects through the Third World First bankers order scheme.
With this issue, the New Internationalist becomes a monthly magazine, backed jointly by Oxfam and Christian Aid, and aimed at a wider audience. It will report on the people, the ideas, and the action in the fight for world development; it will give a platform to the new social and political ideas from Africa, Asia, and Latin America; it will debate and campaign for the great changes which are necessary to bring justice and help to the world's poor.
The New Internationalist is only one part of this campaign. But in asking you to subscribe to it, read it, write to it, talk about it, publicise it, we are asking you to join this growing movement for action on the greatest issue of our times.]]>Thu, 1 Mar 1973 00:00:00 +0000